F 

82.1 
•  H8 


THE  UTAH  BILL. 


A  Plea  for  Religious  Liberty, 


Hon.  W.  H.  HOOPER, 

OF    UTAH, 
Delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  March  23,  1870, 


TOGETHER  WITH  THE 

KEMO3  STRANGE 

Of  the  Citizens  of  Salt  Lake  City,  in  Mass  Meeting, 

held   March  31,  1870,  to  the  Senate 

of  the  United  States. 


WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

GIBSON     BROTHERS,     PRINTERS. 

1870. 


SPEECH. 


MR.  SPEAKER:  I  wish  to  make  a  few  remarks  concerning  the  extra- 
ordinary bill  now  under  consideration.  While  so  doing,  I  crave  the  at- 
tention of  the  House,  for  I  am  here,  not  alone  as  one  of  the  people  sought 
to  be  cruelly  oppressed  ;  not  only  as  the  Delegate  representing  Utah  ;  but 
as  an  American  citizen,  to  utter  my  solemn  protest  against  the  passage  of 
a  bill  that  aims  to  violate  our  dearest  rights,  and  is  fraught  with  evil  to 
the  Republic  itself. 

I  do  not  propose  to  occupy  the  time  of  the  House  by  dwelling  at  length 
upon  the  vast  contributions  of  the  people  of  Utah  to  the  wealth  of  the 
nation.  There  is  no  member  of  this  House  who  does  not  recollect  in 
his  school-boy  days  the  vast  region  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  char- 
acterized in  the  geographies  as  the  "  Great  American  Desert."  "There," 
said  those  veracious  text-books,  "was  a  vast  region  wherein  no  man 
could  live.  There  were  springs  and  streams,  upon  the  banks  of  which 
could  be  seen  the  bleaching  bones  of  animals  and  of  men,  poisoned 
from  drinking  of  the  deadly  waters."  Around  the  borders  of  this  vast 
desert,  and  in  its  few  habitable  parts,  roamed  the  painted  savages,,  only 
less  cruel  and  remorseless  than  the  desert  itself. 

In  the  midst  of  this  inhospitable  waste  to-day  dwell  an  agricultural, 
pastoral,  and  self-sustaining  people,  numbering  120,000  souls.  Every- 
where can  be  seen  the  fruits  of  energetic  and  persistent  industry.  The 
surrounding  mining  Territories  of  Colorado,  Idaho,  Montana,  Arizona, 
and  Nevada,  in  their  infancy,  were  fed  and  fostered  from  the  surplus 
stores  of  the  Mormon  people.  The  development  of  the  resources  of 
these  mining  Territories  was  alone  rendered  possible  by  the  existence 
at  their  very  doors  of  an  agricultural  people,  who  supplied  them  with 
the  chief  necessities  of  life  at  a  price  scarcely  above  that  demanded  in 
the  old  and  populous  States.  The  early  immigrants  to  California  paused 
on  their  weary  journey  in  the  redeemed  wastes  of  Utah,  to  recruit  their 
strength,  and  that  of  their  animals,  and  California  is  to-day  richer  by 
thousands  of  lives  and  millions  of  treasure,  for  the  existence  of  this  half- 
way house  to  El  Dorado. 


To  the  people  of  Utah,  therefore,  is  to  be  attributed  no  inconsiderable 
part  in  the  production  of  the  vast  mineral  wealth  which  has  poured  into 
the  coffers  of  the  nation  from  our  mining  States  and  Territories. 

This,  however,  is  but  a  tithe  of  our  contributions  to  the  nation's 
wealth.  By  actual  experiment  we  have  demonstrated  the  practicability 
of  redeeming  these  desert  wastes.  When  the  Pacific  slope  and  its 
boundless  resources  shall  have  been  developed  ;  when  beyond  the  Rocky 
mountains  40,000,000  of  people  shall  do  homage  to  our  flag,  the  millions 
of  dwellers  in  Arizona,  Nevada,  Idaho,  Colorado,  and  Montana,  enriched 
by  the  products  of  their  redeemed  and  fertilized  deserts,  shall  point  to 
the  valley  of  Great  Salt  Lake  as  their  exemplar,  and  accord  to  the  sturdy 
toilers  of  that  land  due  honor,  in  that  they  inaugurated  the  system  and 
demonstrated  its  possible  results.  These  results  are  the  offering  of  Utah 
to  the  nation. 

When  Robert  Fulton's  first  steamboat  moved  from  New  York  to  Al- 
bany, so  far  as  concerned  the  value  of  the  vessel,  he  had  made  scarce 
a  perceptible  addition  to  our  merchant  marine ;  but  the  principle,  the 
practicability  of  which  he  then  demonstrated,  was  priceless,  and  en- 
riched the  nation  more  than  if  she  had  received  the  gift  of  the  vessel, 
built  from  and  loaded  with  solid  gold. 

I  will  not,  Mr.  Speaker,  trespass  upon  the  time  of  the  House  by  more 
than  thus  briefly  adverting  to  the  claims  of  Utah  to  the  gratitude  and 
fostering  care  of  the  American  people. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  United  States,  by  the  intro- 
duction of  the  bill  under  consideration,  a  well-defined  and  positive  effort 
is  made  to  turn  the  great  law-making  power  of  the  nation  into  a  moral 
channel,  and  to  legislate  for  the  consciences  of  the  people. 

Here,  for  the  first  time,  is  a  proposition  to  punish  a  citizen  for  his 
religious  belief  or  unbelief.  We  have  before  us  a  statute-book  desig- 
nating crimes.  To  restrain  criminal  acts,  and  to  punish  the  offender, 
has  heretofore  been  the  province  of  the  law,  and  in  it  we  have  the  sup- 
port of  the  accused  himself.  No  man  comes  to  the  bar  for  trial  with 
the  plea  that  the  charge  upon  which  he  is  arraigned  constitutes  no  of- 
fence. His  plea  is,  "Not  guilty."  He  cannot  pass  beyond  and  behind 
the  established  conclusions  of  humanity.  But  this  bill  reaches  beyond 
that  code  into  the  questionable  world  of  morals — the  debatable  land  of 
religious  beliefs  ;  and,  first  creating  the  offence,  seeks  with  the  malig- 
nant fury  of  partisan  prejudice  and  sectarian  hate  to  measure  out  the 
punishment. 

The  bill  before  us  declares  that  that  system  which  Moses  taught,  that 


God  allowed,  and  from  which  Christ,  our  Saviour,  sprung,  is  a  crime, 
and  that  any  man  believing  in  it  and  practising  it — I  beg  pardon, 
the  bill,  as  I  shall  presently  show,  asserts  that  belief  alone  is  sufficient — 
that  any  one  so  offending  shall  not  be  tried,  but  shall  be  convicted, 
his  children  declared  bastards,  his  wives  turned  out  to  starve,  and  his 
property  be  confiscated,  in  fact,  for  the  benefit  of  the  moral  reformers, 
who,  as  I  believe,  are  the  real  instigators  in  this  matter. 

The  honorable  member  from  Illinois,  the  father  of  this  bill,  informs 
us  that  this  is  a  crime  abhorred  by  men,  denounced  by  God,  and  pro- 
hibited and  punished  by  every  State  in  the  Union.  I  have  a  profound 
respect  for  the  motives  of  the  honorable  member.  I  believe  he  is  in- 
spired by  a  sincere  hostility  to  that  which  he  so  earnestly  denounces. 
No  earthly  inducement  could  make  him  practise  polygamy.  Seduction, 
in  the  eyes  of  thousands,  is  an  indiscretion,  where  all  the  punishment 
falls  upon  the  innocent  and  unoffending.  The  criminal  taint  attaches 
when  the  seducer  attempts  to  marry  his  victim.  This  is  horrid.  This 
is  not  to  be  endured  by  man  or  God,  and  laws  must  be  promulgated  to 
prevent  and  punish. 

While  I  have  this  profound  regard  for  the  morals  and  motives  of  the 
honorable  member,  I  must  say  that  I  do  not  respect,  to  the  same  ex- 
tent, his  legal  abilities.  Polygamy  is  not  denounced  by  every  State 
and  Territory,  and  the  gentleman  will  search  in  vain  for  the  statute  or 
criminal  code  of  either  defining  its  existence  and  punishment.  The 
gentleman  confounds  a  religious  belief  with  a  criminal  act.  He  is 
thinking  of  bigamy  when  he  denounces  polygamy,  and  in  the  confusion 
that  follows,  blindly  strikes  out  against  an  unknown  enemy.  Will  he 
permit  me  to  call  his  attention  to  the  distinction  ?  Bigamy  means  the 
wrong  done  a  woman  by  imposing  upon  her  the  forms  of  matrimony 
while  another  wife  lives,  rendering  such  second  marriage  null  and  void. 
The  reputation  and  happiness  of  a  too  confiding  woman  is  thus  forever 
blasted  by  the  fraudulent  acts  of  her  supposed  husband,  and  he  is  de- 
servedly punished  for  his  crime.  Polygamy,  on  the  contrary,  is  the 
act  of  marrying  more  than  one  woman,  under  a  belief  that  a  man  has 
.he  right,  lawfully  and  religiously,  so  to  do,  and  with  the  knowledge 
and  consent  of  both  the  wives. 

I  suppose,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  in  proclaiming  the  old  Jeffersonian  doc- 
trine that  that  Government  is  best  which  governs  least,  I  would  not 
have  even  a  minority  upon  this  floor.  But  when  I  say  that  in  a  system 
of  self-government  such  as  ours,  that  looks  to  the  purest  democracy,  and 
seeks  to  be  a  government  of  the  people,  for  the  people,  and  by  the  peo- 


pie,  we  have  no  room  for  the  guardian,  nor,  above  all,  for  the  master,  I 
can  claim  the  united  support  of  both  parties.  To  have  such  a  govern- 
ment, to  retain  such  in  its  purest  strength,  we  must  leave  all  questions 
of  morals  and  religion  that  lie  outside  the  recognized  code  of  crime  to 
the  conscience  of  the  citizen.  In  an  attempt  to  do  otherwise  than  this, 
the  world's  abiding  places  have  been  washed  with  human  blood,  and  its 
fields  made  rich  with  human  bones.  No  government  has  been  found 
strong  enough  to  stand  unshaken  above  the  throes  of  religious  fanati- 
cism when  driven  to  the  wall  by  religious  persecution.  Ours,  sir,  would 
disappear  like  the  "  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision"  before  the  first  blast  of  such 
a  convulsion.  Does  the  gentleman  believe,  for  example,  that  in  aiming 
this  cruel  blow  at  a  handful  of  earnest  followers  of  the  Lord  in  Utah  he 
is  doing  a  more  justifiable  act  than  would  be,  in  the  eyes  of  a  majority 
of  our  citizens,  a  bill  to  abolish  Catholicism,  because  of  its  alleged  im- 
morality; or  a  law  to  annhilate  the  Jews  for  that  they  are  Jews,  and 
therefore  obnoxious?  Let  that  evil  door  once  be  opened;  set  sect 
against  sect ;  let  the  Bible  and  the  school  books  give  place  to  the  sword 
and  the  bayonet,  and  we  will  find  the  humanity  of  to-day  the  humanity 
of  the  darker  ages,  and  our  beautiful  government  a  mournful  dream  of 
the  past. 

This  is  not  only  philosophically  true,  but,  sir,  it  is  historically  a 
fact.  In  making  the  appeal,  I  stand  upon  the  very  foundation-stone  of 
our  constitutional  Government.  That  they  might  worship  God  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  dictates  of  conscience,  the  fathers  fled  from  their 
homes  in  Europe  to  the  wilds  of  America.  For  this  they  bore  the 
fatigues  or  perished  in  the  wilds  of  a  savage-haunted  continent ;  for 
this  they  poured  out  their  blood  in  wars,  until  every  stone  in  the  huge 
edifice  that  shelters  us  as  a  nation  is  cemented  by  the  blood  of  the 
martyr.  Upon  this,  however,  I  need  not  spend  my  time  or  yours  ;  a 
mere  statement  of  the  proposition  is  a  conclusive  argument  from  which 
the  people,  in  their  honest  instincts,  will  permit  no  appeal.  In  our 
Constitution,  still  perfect  and  fresh  as  ever,  we  have  a  clause  that 
cannot  be  changed  and  leave  a  vestige  of  a  free  government.  In  the 
original  instrument  we  find  this  language  :  "  No  religious  test  shall 
ever  be  required  as  a  qualification  to  any  office  or  public  trust  under 
the  United  States."  But  this  was  not  considered  sufficiently  compre- 
hensive for  a  free  people,  and  subsequently  we  find  it  declared,  "  Con- 
gress shall  make  no  law  respecting  an  establishment  of  religion  or 
prohibiting  the  free  exercise  thereof." 

Upon  the  very  threshold  of  my  argument,  however,  I  am  met  by  the 


advocates  of  this  extraordinary  bill  with  the  assumption  that  polygamy 
is  not  entitled  to  be  considered  as  a  portion  of  our  religious  faith ;  that 
under  the  Constitution  we  are  to  be  protected  and  respected  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  our  religious  faith,  but  that  we  are  not  entitled  to  consider  as  a 
portion  thereof  the  views  held  by  us  as  a  people  in  reference  to  the  mar- 
riage relation.  One  eminent  disputant,  as  an  argument,  supposes  a 
case  where  a  religious  sect  might  claim  to  believe  in  the  rightfulness  of 
murder,  and  to  be  protected  in  the  enjoyment  of  that  right.  This  is  not 
in  any  sense  a  parallel  case.  Murder,  by  all  law,  human  and  divine,  is 
a  crime  ;  polygamy  is  not.  In  a  subsequent  portion  of  my  remarks,  I 
shall  show,  that  not  only  by  the  authority  of  the  Old  Testament  writers, 
but  by  numerous  leading  writers  of  the  Christian  church,  the  doctrine 
of  polygamy  is  justified  and  approved.  The  only  ground  upon  which 
any  argument  can  be  maintained  that  our  views  of  the  marriage  relation 
are  not  to  be  considered  as  a  portion  of  our  religious  faith,  is  that  mar- 
riage is  a  purely  civil  contract,  and  therefore  outside  the  province  of 
religious  doctrine.  No  sect  of  Christians  can,  however,  be  found  who 
will  carry  their  beliefs  to  this  extent.  The  Catholic  church,  the  most 
ancient  of  the  Christian  churches,  and  among  the  most  powerful  in 
numbers  of  the  religious  denominations  of  our  country,  upon  this  point 
is  in  accord  with  the  Mormon  church.  Marriage,  according  to  the  faith 
of  the  Catholic  church,  is  one  of  its  sacraments ;  is  not  in  any  sense  a 
civil  contract,  but  a  religious  ordinance,  and  the  validity  of  a  divorce 
granted  by  a  civil  court  is  denied.  And  not  in  any  Christian  church 
is  the  marriage  contract  placed  on  a  par  with  other  civil  contracts — with 
a  swap  of  horses  or  a  partnership  in  trade.  It  is  a  civil  contract,  in 
that  a  court  of  equity,  for  certain  specified  causes,  may  dissolve  it ;  but 
not  otherwise.  Upon  the  marriage  contract  is  invoked  the  most  solemn 
sanctions  of  our  Christianity ;  the  appointed  ministers  and  servants  of 
God,  by  their  presence  and  aid,  give  solemnity  and  efficiency  to  the 
ceremonial,  and  upon  the  alliance  is  invoked  the  Divine  guidance  and 
blessing.  To  most  intents  and  purposes,  with  every  Christian  denomi- 
nation, the  marriage  ceremony  is  regarded  as  a  religious  ordinance. 
Upon  this  point,  therefore,  and  a  vital  point  in  the  discussion  of  the 
question  before  us,  the  Catholic  church  in  fact,  and  the  other  religious 
denominations  in  theory  and  usual  practice,  are  with  the  Mormons  in  their 
position,  that  the  supervision  and  control  of  the  marital  relation  is  an 
integral  and  essential  portion  of  their  religious  faith  and  practice,  in  the 
enjoyment  of  which  they  are  protected  by  the  Constitution. 

The   Mormon   people  are   a  Christian  denomination.     They  believe 


8 

fully  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  in  the  divinity  of  Christ's  mis- 
sion, and  the  upbuilding  and  triumph  of  his  church.  They  do  not  be- 
lieve, however,  that  light  and  guidance  from  above,  ceased  with  the  cruci- 
fixion on  Calvary.  On  the  other  hand,  they  find  that  in  all  ages,  when- 
ever a  necessity  therefor  existed,  God  has  raised  up  prophets  to  speak 
to  the  people,  and  to  manifest  to  them  his  will  and  requirements.  And 
they  believe  that  Joseph  Smith  was  such  a  prophet;  that  the  time  had 
arrived  when  there  was  a  necessity  for  further  revelation,  and  through 
Joseph  Smith  it  was  given  to  the  world. 

Upon  this  point  of  continuous  revelation,  which  is  really  one  of  the 
turning  points  of  the  controversy,  we  are  in  accord  with  many  of  the 
most  eminent  divines  of  the  Christian  church,  and  with  the  most  earnest 
and  vigorous  thinkers  of  our  own  day. 

Upon  the  departure  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  from  Holland  for  Amer- 
ica, the  Rev.  John  Robinson,  their  beloved  pastor,  preached  a  farewell 
sermon,  which  showed  a  spirit  of  mildness  and  tolerance  truly  wonderful 
in  that  age,  and  which  many  who  claim  to  be  ministers  of  God  would 
do  well  to  imitate  in  this : 

"  Brethren,  we  are  quickly  to  part  from  one  another,  and  whether  I 
may  ever  live  to  see  your  faces  on  earth  any  more,  the  God  of  heaven 
only  knows;  but  whether  the  Lord  hath  appointed  that  or  not,  1 
charge  you,  before  God,  and  His  blessed  angels,  that  you  follow  me  no 
further  than  you  have  seen  me  follow  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  If  God 
reveal  anything  to  you  by  any  other  instrument  of  His,  be  as  ready  to 
receive  it  as  you  were  to  receive  any  truth  by  my  ministry  ;  for  I  am 
fully  persuaded,  I  am  very  confident,  that  the  Lord  has  more  truth  yet 
to  break  forth  out  of  His  holy  word. 

"  For  my  part,  I  cannot  sufficiently  bewail  the  condition  of  the  re- 
formed churches,  who  are  come  to  a  period  in  religion,  and  will  go  at 
present  no  further  than  the  instruments  of  their  reformation.  The 
Lutherans  cannot  be  drawn  to  go  beyond  what  Luther  saw.  What- 
ever part  of  His  will  our  good  God  has  revealed  to  Calvin,  they  will 
rather  die  than  embrace  it ;  and  the  Calvinists,  you  see,  stick  fast  where 
they  were  left  by  that  great  man  of  God,  who  yet  saw  not  all  things. 

"  This  is  a  misery  much  to  be  lamented,  for  though  they  were  burning 
and  shining  lights  in  their  time,  yet  they  penetrated,  not  into  the  whole 
counsel  of  God  ;  but  were  they  now  living,  would  be  as  ready  to  em- 
brace further  light  as  that  which  they  first  received.  I  beseech  you 
to  remember  that  it  is  an  article  of  your  church  covenant,  that  you 
shall  be  ready  to  receive  whatever  truths  shall  be  made  known  to  you 
from  the  written  ivord  of  God. " 

And,  says  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  in  one  of  his  most  golden  utter- 
naces,  "  I  look  for  the  hour  when  that  supreme  beauty  which  ravished 


9 

the  souls  of  those  Hebrews,  and  through  their  lips  spoke  oracles  to  all 
time,  shall  speak  in  the  West  also.  '  The  Hebrew  and  Greek  Scriptures 
contain  immortal  sentences  that  have  been  the  bread  of  life  to  millions. 
But  they  have  no  epical  integrity  ;  are  fragmentary;  are  not  shown  in 
their  order  to  the  intellect.  I  look  for  the  new  Teacher  that  shall  fol- 
low so  far  those  shining  laws  that  he  shall  see  them  come  full  circle  j 
shall  see  their  rounding,  complete  grace ;  shall  see  the  world  to  be  the 
mirror  of  the  soul." 

Conceding,  therefore,  that  new  revelations  may  be  at  all  times  ex- 
pected in  the  future  of  our  race,  as  they  have  been  at  all  times  vouch- 
safed in  the  past,  and  the  whole  controversy  ends.  A  man  has  arisen 
named  Joseph  Smith ;  he  claims  to  be  a  prophet  of  God,  and  a  numerous 
community  see  fit  to  admit  the  justice  of  such  claim.  It  is  a  religious 
sect ;  it  has  to-day  vindicated  its  right  to  live  by  works  and  sacrifices 
which  are  the  admiration  even  of  its  enemies.  It  brings  forward  certain 
new  doctrines ;  of  church  government ;  of  baptism,  even  for  their  dead  5 
of  the  marriage  relation.  Upon  what  point  is  it  more  probable  that 
light  from  above  would  be  given  to  our  race,  than  upon  the  marriage 
relation?  The  social  problem  is  the  question  of  the  age.  The  minds 
of  many  of  the  foremost  men  and  women  of  our  day  are  given  to  the 
study  of  the  proper  position  and  relations  of  the  sexes.  The  wisest 
differ — differ  honestly  and  unavoidably.  Endless  is  the  dispute  and 
clamor  of  those  honestly  striving  to  do  away  with  the  social  evil ;  to 
ameliorate  the  anomalous  condition  of  the  wronged  and  suffering  women 
of  to-day.  And  while  this  is  so ;  while  thousands  of  the  good  and  pure 
of  all  creeds  and  parties  are  invoking  the  Divine  guidance  in  their  efforts 
for  the  good  of  our  fallen  humanity,  is  it  strange  that  the  Divine  guidance 
thus  earnestly  besought  should  come — that  the  prayers  of  the  righteous 
be  answered  ?  The  Mormon  people  believe  that  God  has  thus  spoken  ; 
that  through  Joseph  Smith  he  has  indicated  the  true  solution  of  the 
social  questions  of  our  day ;  and  while  they  persecute  or  question  no 
man  for  differing  honestly  with  them,  as  to  the  Divine  authority  of  such 
revelation,  they  firmly  insist  that  in  their  following  of  what  they  believe 
to  be  the  will  of  God,  they  are  entitled  to  the  same  immunity  from  perse- 
cution at  the  hands  of  the  Government,  and  to  the  same  liberty  of  thought 
and  speech,  wisely  secured  to  other  religious  beliefs  by  the  Constitution. 

Upon  the  point  whether  polygamy  can  properly  be  considered  as  a 
part  of  our  religious  faith  and  practice,  I  beg  leave  humbly  further  to 
submit,  sir,  that  the  decision  rests  solely  on  the  conscience  and  belief  of 
the  man  or  woman  who  proclaims  it  to  be  a  religious  belief.  As  I  have 


10 

said,  it  is  not  numbered  among  the  crimes  of  that  code  recognized  by  all 
nations  having  any  form  of  government  under  which  criminals  are  re- 
strained or  punished,  and  to  make  it  such,  a  new  code  must  be  framed. 
My  people  proclaim  polygamy  as  a  part  of  their  religious  belief.  If  they 
are  honest  in  this,  however  much  they  may  be  in  error,  they  stand  on 
their  rights  under  the  Constitution,  and  to  arrest  that  error  you  must 
appeal  to  reason,  and  not  to  force.  I  am  here,  not  to  argue  or  demon- 
strate the  truthfulness  of  their  faith ;  I  am  not  called  upon  to  convince 
this  honorable  House  that  it  is  either  true  or  false  ;  but  if  I  can  convince 
you  that  this  belief  is  honorably  and  sincerely  entertained,  my  object  is 
accomplished. 

It  is  common  to  teach,  and  thousands  believe  that  the  leaders 
of  the  sect  of  Latter-Day  Saints,  popularly  known  as  Mormons,  are 
hypocrites,  while  their  followers  are  either  ignorant,  deluded  men 
and  women,  or  people  held  to  their  organization  by  the  vilest  impulses 
of  lust.  To  refute  these  slanders,  I  can  only  do  as  the  earlier  Christians 
did,  point  to  their  sufferings  and  sacrifices,  and  I  may  add,  the  unani- 
mous testimony  of  all,  that  aside  from  what  they  consider  the  objection- 
able practice  of  polygamy,  my  constituents  are  sober,  moral,  just,  and 
industrious  in  the  eyes  of  all  impartial  witnesses.  In  this  community, 
removed  by  long  reaches  of  wastes  from  the  moral  influences  of  civiliza- 
tion, we  have  a  quiet,  orderly,  and  Christian  community.  Our  towns 
are  without  gambling  hells,  drinking  saloons,  or  brothels,  while  from 
end  to  end  of  our  Territory  the  innocent  can  walk  unharmed  at  all  hours. 
Nor  is  this  due  to  an  organized  police,  but  to  the  kind  natures  and 
Christian  impulses  of  a  good  people.  In  support  of  my  argument  of 
their  entire  sincerity,  I  with  confidence  appeal  to  their  history. 

The  Mormon  church  was  established  at  Fayette,  New  York,  in  the 
year  1830.  In  1831  the  headquarters  of  the  people  was  removed  to 
Kirtland,  Ohio,  and  considerable  numbers  of  missionaries  were  sent  out 
to  preach  the  new  religion  in  various  parts  of  the  Northern  States.  Many 
converts  were  made  and  removed  to  Kirtland,  but  they  were  subjected 
to  various  petty  annoyances  and  persecutions  by  the  surrounding  people. 
Land  not  being  abundant  or  easily  acquired  for  the  rapidly  increasing 
numbers,  the  new  converts  were  advised  to  locate  in  Jackson  county, 
Missouri,  where  land  was  abundant  and  cheap — where,  in  fact,  but  few 
settlers  had  preceded  our  people.  The  Mormons  soon  became  a  pros- 
perous and  wealthy  community ;  the  same  habits  of  industry  and  thrift 
which  they  have  ever  maintained  being  even  then  vigorously  inculcated 
by  their  leaders.  Many  hundred  thousand  acres  of  Government  land 


11 

were  purchased,  fine  farms  and  thriving  settlements  were  established, 
and  the  first  printing  press  in  western  Missouri  put  in  operation.  But 
the  wealth  acquired  by  the  people  was  desired  by  our  neighbors ;  the 
lawless  border-men,  who  afterward  made  the  frontiers  of  Kansas  their 
battle-field,  attacked,  plundered,  and  murdered  our  settlers,  and  finally 
drove  them  from  their  delightful  homes,  which  they  appropriated  to 
themselves.  The  title  to  much  of  the  land  in  Jackson  and  other  coun- 
ties is  to-day  in  Mormons,  who  were  then  driven  from  their  homes. 
During  the  troubles  incident  to  the  expulsion  of  the  Mormons,  hundreds 
of  men,  women,  and  children  were  murdered,  or  died  from  diseases 
caused  by  exposure  to  the  inclemencies  of  the  weather.  The  wretched 
refugees  afterward  located  in  Clay,  Caldwell,  and  Davies  counties,  Mis- 
souri, where  there  were  almost  no  settlers,  and  where,  within  a  few 
years,  their  industries  had  again  built  up  thriving  settlements  and  accu- 
mulated large  herds  of  stock.  The  outrages  of  Jackson  county  were  then 
repeated,  the  Mormons  driven  from  their  homes,  which  were  seized  by 
the  marauders,  and  thousands  of  women  and  children  driven  forth  home- 
less, and  the  prey  for  the  border-ruffians  whose  cupidity  had  been  ex- 
cited by  the  wealth  of  the  industrious  exiles.  Hundreds  perished  from 
cold,  exposure,  and  starvation.  But  their  leaders,  sustained  by  an  un- 
dying faith,  again  called  together  their  scattered  and  impoverished  fol- 
lowers, and  removing  to  Illinois,  founded  the  city  of  Nauvoo. 

For  several  years  they  were  comparatively  undisturbed  ;  they  built  up 
one  of  the  most  thriving  and  beautiful  cities  of  the  State.  Far  as  the 
eye  could  reach  from  the  eminence  of  their  temple,  the  well-tilled  farms 
and  gardens,  the  comfortable  farm-houses,  the  mills  and  factories,  and 
well-filled  schools,  attested  the  industry,  the  thrift,  and  the  wealth  of 
the  once  persecuted  people  But  again  their  wealth  created  envy  in  the 
lawless  border-men  of  the  new  State.  Without  what  even  their  enemies 
claim  was  justifiable  cause,  and  in  a  manner  which  Gk»v.  Ford  charac- 
terized as  a  permanent  disgrace  to  the  people  of  the  State,  they  were  at- 
tacked, pillaged,  and  driven  across  the  river;  their  houses  burned; 
their  women  and  children  driven  forth  unsheltered  in  the  inclement 
season  of  the  year;  their  leaders  brutally  murdered. 

The  annals  of  religious  persecution,  so  fruitful  of  cruel  abuse,  can  give 
nothing  more  pitiable  and  heart-rending  than  the  scenes  which  followed 
this  last  expulsion.  Aged  men  and  women,  the  sick  and  feeble,  children 
of  tender  years,  and  the  wounded,  were  driven  into  the  flats  of  the  river, 
yet  in  sight  of  their  once  happy  houses,  to  perish  from  exposure  and 
starvation.  While  over  our  broad  land  the  church  bells  of  Christian 


12 

communities  were  ringing  out  peace  and  good-will  to  men ;  while  to  the 
churches  thronged  thousands  to  hear  preached  the  gospel  of  charity  and 
forgiveness;  these  poor,  heart-sick  followers  of  the  same  Redeemer,  were 
driven  in  violence  from  their  houses  to  perish  like  wild  beasts  in  the 
swamps  and  wilderness.  The  gentlemen  charge  us  with  hypocrisy  and 
depraved  lusts  for  motives,  with  such  a  record  as  this  to  mock  their 
charges !  The  world  has  many  hypocrites,  and  is  well  filled  with  wicked 
men,  but  they  keep  about  them  the  recompense  of  sin,  and  have  other 
histories  than  this  I  give  you,  and  which  history  no  man  can  deny. 

Word  went  out  to  the  world  that  Mormonism  had  finally  been  an- 
nihilated. But  again  the  scattered  hosts  were  gathered  together,  and 
set  out  on  a  pilgrimage,  that  since  that  of  the  children  of  Israel  has 
been  without  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  human  race.  They  had  no 
stores  ;  they  were  beggared  in  the  world's  goods,  yet  with  earnest  re- 
ligious enthusiasm  they  toiled  on  through  unknown  deserts,  over  un- 
explored mountain  ranges,  and  across  plains  haunted  by  savages,  only 
less  cruel  than  the  white  Christians  who  had  driven  them  forth  in 
search  of  that  promised  land,  where  at  last  they  could  worship  God  in 
accordance  with  the  dictates  of  their  own  consciences,  and  find  un- 
broken that  covenant  of  the  Constitution  which  guards  this  sacred 
right.  Ragged,  foot-sore,  starving  and  wretched,  they  wandered  on. 
Delicately  nurtured  women  and  their  little  children  dug  roots,  or  sub- 
sisted on  the  bark  of  trees  or  the  hides  of  animals.  From  Nauvoo  t'> 
Salt  Lake,  the  valley  of  their  promised  land — 1,500  miles — there  is 
to-day  scarce  a  mile  along  that  dreary  and  terrible  road,  where  does 
not  repose  the  body  of  some  weary  one,  whom  famine,  or  sickness, 
or  the  merciless  savage,  caused  to  perish  by  the  way. 

It  was  while  on  this  pilgrimage  that  an  order  carne  from  the  Gov- 
ernment for  five  hundred  men  to  serve  as  soldiers  in  the  Mexican 
war.  The  order  was  promptly  obeyed.  These  devoted  men,  who 
had  received  only  cruel  persecution  from  the  people  they  were  called 
upon  to  protect  on  the  field  of  battle,  dedicated  their  poor,  helpless 
wives  to  God,  and  themselves  to  their  country.  Leaving  their  families 
to  struggle  on  as  best  they  could,  these  brave,  patriotic  men  followed 
our  flag  into  New  Mexico  and  California,  and  were  at  last  disbanded 
at  San  Diego,  with  high  praise  from  their  officers,  but  with  scanty 
means  to  return  to  those  they  loved,  and  whom  they  had  left  to  suffer, 
and  perhaps  to  perish  on  the  way. 

Thus,  Mr.  Speaker,  three  times  did  this  persecuted  people,  before 
tbeir  location  in  Utah,  build  up  for  themselves  pleasant  and  prosperous 


13 

homes,  and  by  their  industry  surround  themselves  with  all  the  com- 
forts and  appliances  of  wealth ;  and  three  times  were  they,  by  an 
unprincipled  and  outrageous  mob,  driven  from  their  possessions,  and 
reduced  to  abjectest  poverty.  And  bear  it  in  mind,  that  in  every 
instance  the  leaders  of  these  organized  mobs,  offered  to  all  who  would 
abandon  and  deny  their  faith,  toleration  and  the  possession  of  their 
homes  and  wealth.  But  they  refused  the  tempting  snare.  They  re- 
joiced that  they  were  thought  worthy  to  suffer  for  the  Master,  and, 
rather  than  to  deny  their  faith,  they  welcomed  privation;  the}7  sacri- 
ficed all  that  earth  could  offer;  they  died  the  saintly  martyr's  death. 

Mr.  Speaker,  is  this  shining  record  that  of  a  community  of  hypo- 
crites ?  What  other  Christian  denomination  of  our  country  can  show 
higher  evidences  of  earnestness,  of  devoted  self-sacrifice  for  the  preser- 
vation of  their  religious  faith  ? 

In  further  presentation  of  my  argument,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  the 
doctrine  of  polygamy  is  an  essential  feature  in  our  religious  faith,  and 
that  in  our  adherence  thereto  we  are  advocating  no  new  or  unsup- 
ported theory  of  marriage,  I  crave  the  indulgence  of  the  House 
while  I  cite  some  few  from  the  numerous  writers  of  weight  and  au- 
thority in  the  Christian  Church,  who  have  illustrated  or  supported  the 
doctrine. 

Now,  sir,  far  be  it  from  me  to  undertake  to  teach  this  learned  House, 
and  above  all,  the  Hon.  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Territories,  great  theological  truths.  If  there  be  any  subject  with 
which  this  honorable  body  is  especially  conversant,  it  is  theology. 
I  have  heard  more  Scripture  quoted  here,  and  more  morality  taught, 
than  in  any  other  place  it  was  ever  my  fortune  to  serve.  With  great 
diffidence  then,  I  venture  to  suggest  to  the  supporters  of  this  bill, 
that  while  polygamy  had  its  origin  in  holy  writ,  taught  as  I  have  said 
before  by  the  greatest  of  all  lawmakers,  and  not  only  tolerated,  but 
explicitly  commanded  by  the  Almighty,  as  I  shall  presently  show, 
monogamy,  or  the  system  of  marriage  now  recognized  by  so  many 
Christian  nations,  originated  among  the  Pagans  of  ancient  Greece  and 
Rome. 

I  know,  sir,  that  the  reporb  accompanying  the  bill  fetches  vast  stores 
of  theological  information  to  bear ;  informs  us  that  polygamy  is  contrary 
to  the  Divine  economy,  and  refers  to  the  marriage  of  the  first  human 
couple,  and  cites  the  further  testimony  of  the  Bible,  and  that  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  world.  Setting  aside  the  last  named  as  slightly  too  volumin- 
ous for  critical  examination  in  the  present  discussion,  we  will  take  up, 


14 

as  briefly  as  possible,  the  Divine  authorities,  and  the  commentaries 
and  discussions  thereon  by  eminent  Christian  writers,  and  see  how  far 
my  people  have  been  misled  by  clinging  to  them.  As  for  the  illustrious 
example  quoted  of  our  first  parents,  all  that  can  be  said  of  their  mar- 
riage is,  that  it  was  exhaustive.  Adam  married  all  the  women  in  the 
world,  and  if  we  would  find  teaching  by  example,  we  must  go  among 
bis  descendants,  where  examples  can  be  found  among  the  favored  peo- 
ple of  God,  whose  laws  were  of  Divine  origin,  and  whose  conduct  re- 
ceived sanction  or  punishment  at  His  hands. 

At  the  period  of  the  Reformation  in  Germany,  during  the  early  part 
of  the  16th  century,  those  great  reformers,  Luther,  Melancthon,  Zwin- 
gle,  and  Bucer,  held  a  solemn  consultation  at  Wittenburg  on  the. 
question,  "  Whether  it  is  contrary  to  the  Divine  law  for  a  man  to  have 
two  wives  at  once?"  and  decided  unanimously  that  it  was  not:  and 
upon  the  authority  of  this  decision,  Philip,  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  actu- 
ally married  a  second  wife,  his  first  being  still  alive.  This  fact  is 
recorded  in  D'Aubigne's  History  of  the  Reformation,  and  by  other 
authors  of  that  period. 

Dr.  Hugo  Grotius,  a  celebrated  Dutch  jurist  and  statesman,  and 
most  eminent  law-writer  of  the  seventeenth  century,  states  that  "  the 
Jewish  laws  allow  a  plurality  of  wives  to  one  man." 

Hon.  John  Selden,  a  distinguished  English  author  and  statesman, 
a  member  of  Parliament  for  Lancaster  in  1624,  and  who  represented 
the  University  of  Oxford  in  the  Long  Parliament  of  1640,  in  his  work 
entitled  "  Uxor  Hebraica,"  the  Hebrew  Wife,  says  that  "polygamy 
was  allowed,  not  only  among  the  Hebrews,  but  in  most  other  nations 
throughout  the  world  ;  and  that  monogamy  is  a  modern  and  a  Euro- 
pean custom,  almost  unknown  to  the  ancient  world." 

Dr.  Samuel  Puffendorf,  professor  of  law  in  the  University  of  Heidel- 
berg, in  Germany,  and  afterwards  of  Lund,  in  Sweden,  who  wrote 
during  the  latter  part  of  the  17th  century,  in  his  great  work  on  the 
law  of  nature  and  of  nations,  says  that  "  the  Mosaic  law  was  so  far 
from  forbidding  this  custom  (polygamy)  that  it  seems  in  several  places 
to  suppose  it;"  and  in  another  place  he  says,  in  reference  to  the 
rightfulness  thereof,  "the  polygamy  of  the  fathers,  under  the  old  cov- 
enant, is  an  argument  which  ingenuous  men  must  confess  to  be  unan- 
swerable." 

Rev.  Gilbert  Burnet,  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  the  particular  friend  of 
William  III,  who  was  eminent  among  both  historians  and  theologians, 
wrote  a  tract  upon  this  subject,  near  the  beginning  of  the  18th  century. 


15 

The  tract  was  written  on  the  question,  "Is  a  plurality  of  wives  in  any 
case  lawful  under  the  gospel  ?" 

"  Neither  is  it  (a  plurality  of  wives)  anywhere  marked  among  the 
blemishes  of  the  patriarchs;  David's  wives,  and  store  of  them  he  had, 
are  termed  by  the  prophet,  God's  gift  to  him;  yea,  a  plurality  of 
wives  was  made  in  some  cases  a  duty  by  Moses'  law  ;  when  any  died 
without  issue,  his  brother,  or  nearest  kinsman,  was  to  marry  his  wife, 
for  raising  up  seed  to  him ;  and  all  were  obliged  to  obey  this,  under 
the  hazard  of  infamy,  if  they  refused  it ;  neither  is  there  any  excep- 
tion made  for  such  as  were  married.  From  whence  I  may  faithfully 
conclude,  that  what  God  made  necessary  in  some  cases  to  any  degree 
can  in  no  case  be  sinful  itself;  since  God  is  holy  in  all  His  ways. 

"  But  it  is  now  to  be  examined  if  it  is  forbidden  by  the  goppel.  A 
simple  and  express  discharge  of  a  plurality  of  wives  is  nowhere  to  be 
found. 

"  It  is  true  our  Lord  discharges  divorces,  except  in  the  case  of  adul- 
tery, adding  that  whosoever  puts  away  his  wife  on  any  other  account, 
commits  adultery ;  so  St.  Luke  and  St.  Matthew  in  one  place  have  it, 
or  commits  adultery  against  her;  so  St.  Mark  has  it,  or  causes  her  to 
commit  adultery ;  so  St.  Matthew  in  another  place. 

"  But,  says  an  objector,  if  it  be  adultery  then  to  take  another  woman 
after  an  unjust  divorce,  it  will  follow  that  the  wife  has  that  right  over 
the  husband's  body  that  he  must  touch  no  other. 

"  This  is  indeed  plausible,  and  it  is  all  that  can  be  brought  from 
the  New  Testament  which  seems  convincing ;  yet  it  will  not  be  found 
of  weight. 

"  For  it  is  to  be  considered,  that  if  our  Lord  had  been  to  autiquate 
the  plurality  of  wives,  it  being  so  deeply  rooted  in  the  men  of  that 
age,  confirmed  by  such  fashions  and  unquestioned  precedents,  riveted 
by  so  long  a  practice,  he  must  have  done  it  plainly  and  authoritative- 
ly, and  not  in  such  an  involved  manner  as  to  be  sought  out  of  his 
words  by  the  search  of  logic. 

"  Neither  are  these  dark  words  made  more  clear  by  any  of  the 
apostles  in  their  writings ;  words  are  to  be  carried  no  further  than  the 
design  upon  which  they  were  written  will  lead  them  to  ;  so  that  of  our 
Lord  being,  in  that  place,  to  strike  out  divorce  so  explicitly,  we  must 
not  by  a  consequence  condemn  a  plurality  of  wives,  since  it  seems 
not  to  have  fallen  within  the  scope  of  what  our  Lord  does  there  dis- 
approve. 

"  Then  fore,  to  conclude  this  short  answer,  wherein  many  things 
are  hinted,  which  might  have  been  enlarged  into  a  volume,  I  see 
nothing  so  strong  against  a  plurality  of  wives  as  to  balance  the  great 
and  visible  imminent  hazards  that  hang  over  so  many  thousands,  if  it 
be  not  allowed." 

Rev.  Martin  Madan,  a  relative  of  the  poet  Cowper,  and  an  accom- 
plished scholar,  was  chaplain  of  the  Lock  Hospital  in  London  during 


16 

the  latter  "part  of  the  18th  century.  By  his  exertions  the  first  chapel 
for  the  use  of  the  unfortunate  inmates  of  that  hospital  was  built,  and 
then,  perhaps  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  England,  the  gospel 
was  preached  for  the  special  benefit  of  fallen  women.  The  sympathies 
of  their  benevolent  chaplain  were  so  deeply  enlisted  in  their  behalf 
that  lie  published  a  book  upon  the  subject  in  1780,  entitled  "  Thelyph- 
thora  ;  or,  a  Treatise  on  Female  Ruin,  in  its  Causes,  Effects,  Conse- 
quences, Prevention  and  Remedy,"  which  remedy  he  discovers  to  be 
polygamy,  and  which  lie  discusses  in  a  very  thorough  manner  in  three 
octavo  volumes.  I  submit  copious  extracts  from  this  learned  work, 
which,  in  addition  to  being  directly  in  point  in  the  discussion  before 
us,  illustrate  the  earnestness  and  sincerity  of  the  author  in  his  efforts 
to  benefit  the  condition  of  fallen  women  and  to  prevent  the  ruin  of 
others. 

"  The  best  and  fairest,,  and,  indeed,  the  only  way  to  get  at  the 
truth  on  this,  as  on  every  occasion  where  religion  is  concerned,  is  to 
lay  aside  prejudice,  from  whatever  quarter  it  may  be  derived,  and 
let  the  Bible  speak  for  itself.  Then  we  shall  see  that  more  than  one 
wife,  notwithstanding  the  seventh  commandment,  was  allowed  by  God 
himself,  who,  however  others  might  take  it,  must  infallibly  know  His 
own  mind,  be  perfectly  acquainted  with  His  own  will,  and  thoroughly 
understand  His  own  law.  If  He  did  not  intend  to  allow  a  plurality 
of  wives,  but  to  prevent  and  condemn  it,  either  by  the  seventh  com- 
mandment, 01  by  some  other  law,  how  is  it  possible  that  He  should 
make  laws  for  its  regulation,  any  more  than  He  should  make  laws  for 
the  regulation  of  theft  or  murder  ?  How  is  it  conceivable  that  He 
should  give  the  least  countenance  to  it,  or  so  express  His  approbation 
as  even  to  work  miracles  in  support  of  it  ?  For  the  making  a  woman 
fruitful  who  was  naturally  barren  must  have  been  the  effect  of  super- 
natural power.  He  blessed,  and,  in  a  distinguished  manner,  owned 
the  issue,  and  declared  it  legitimate  to  all  intents  and  purposes.  If 
this  be  not  allowance,  what  is  ? 

"  As  to  the  first,  namely,  His  making  laws  for  the  regulation  of 
polygamy,  let  us  consider  what  is  written  in  Exodus  xxi,  10.  If  he  (i. 
c.,  the  husband)  take  him  another  wife,  (not  in  so  doing  that  he  sins 
against  the  seventh  commandment,  recorded  in  the  preceding  chapter,) 
but  her  food,  her  raiment,  (i.  e.,  of  the  first  wife,)  and  her  duty  of 
marriage,  he  shall  not  diminish.  Here  God  positively  forbids  a  ne- 
glect, much  more  the  divorcing  or  putting  away  of  the  first  wife,  but 
charges  no  sin  in  taking  the  second. 

"  Secondly.  When  Jacob  married  Rachel  she  was  barren,  and  so 
continued  for  many  years ;  but  God  did  not  leave  this  as  a  punish- 
ment upon  her  for  marrying  a  man  who  had  another  wife.  It  is  said, 
(Genesis  xxx,  22,)  that  God  remembered  Rachel ;  and  God  harkened 


17 

unto  her  and  opened  her  womb,  and  she  conceived  and  bare  a  son, 
and  said,  '  God  hath  taken  away  my  reproach.'  Surely,  this  passage  of 
Scripiure  ought  to  afford  a  complete  answer  to  those  who  bring  the 
words  of  the  marriage  bond  as  cited  by  Christ,  (Matthew  xix,  5,) 
'  They  twain  shall  be  one  flesh,'  to  prove  polygamy  sinful,  and  should 
lead  us  to  construe  them  as,  by  this  instance  and  many  others,  the 
Lawgiver  himself  appears  to  have  done ;  that  is  to  say,  where  a 
woman,  not  betrothed  to  another  man,  unites  herself  in  personal 
knowledge  with  the  man  of  her  choice,  let  that  man's  situation  be 
what  it  may,  they  twain  shall  be  one  flesh.  How,  otherwise,  do  we 
find  snch  a  woman  as  Rachel  united  to  Jacob,  who  had  a  wife  then 
living,  praying  to  God  for  a  blessing  on  her  intercourse  with  Jacob, 
and  God,  hearkening  to  her,  opening  her  womb,  removing  her  barren- 
ness, and  thus  by  miracle  taking  away  her  reproach  ?  We  also  find 
the  offspring  legitimate,  and  inheritors  of  the  land  of  Canaan — a  plain 
proof  that  Joseph  and  Benjamin  were  no  bastards,  or  born  out  of  law- 
ful marriage. 

"  See  a  like  palpable  instance  of  God's  miraculous  blessing  on 
polygamy  in  the  case  of  Hannah.  (1  Samuel,  i  and  ii.)  These  in- 
tances  serve  also  to  prove  that,  in  God's  account,  the  second  mar- 
riage is  just  as  valid  as  the  first,  and  as  obligatory ;  and  that  our 
making  it  less  so  is  contradictory  to  the  Divine  wisdom. 

"  Thirdly.  God  blessed  and  owned  the  issue.  How  eminently  this 
was  the  case  with  regard  to  Joseph,  see  Genesis  Ixix,  22-26  ;  to 
Samuel,  see  1  Samuel,  iii,  15.  It  was  expressly  commanded  that  a 
bastard,  or  son  of  a  woman  that  was  with  child  by  whoredom,  should 
not  enter  into  the  congregation  of  the  Lord,  even  to  his  tenth  gen- 
eration. (Deuteronomy  xiii,  2.)  But  we  find  Samuel,  the  offspring 
of  polygamy,  ministering  to  the  Lord  in  the  tabernable  at  Shiloh, 
even  in  his  very  childhood,  clothed  with  a  linen  ephod,  before  Eli, 
the  priest.  See  this  whole  history,  1  Samuel,  i  and  ii.  Who,  then, 
can  doubt  of  Samuel's  legitimacy,  and  consequently  of  God's  al- 
lowance of  and  blessing  on  polygamy  ?  If  such  second  marriage 
was,  in  God's  account,  null  and  void,  as  a  sin  against  the  original  law 
of  marriage,  or  the  seventh  commandment,  or  any  other  law  of  God, 
no  mark  of  legitimacy  could  have  been  found  on  the  issue ;  for  a 
null  and  void  marriage  is  tantamount  to  no  marriage  at  all ;  and  if 
no  marriage,  no  legitimacy  of  the  issue  can  possibly  be.  Instead  of 
such  a  blessing  as  Hannah  obtained,  we  should  have  found  her  and  her 
husband,  Elkanah,  charged  with  adultery,  dragged  forth,  and  stoned 
to  death  ;  for  so  was  adultery  to  be  punished.  All  this  furnishes  us 
with  a  conclusive  proof  that  the  having  more  than  one  wife  with  which 
a  man  cohabited  was  not  adultery  in  the  sight  of  God ;  or,  in  other 
words,  that  it  never  was  reckoned  by  Him  any  sin  against  the  sev- 
enth commandment,  or  the  original  marriage  institution,  or  any  other 
law  whatsoever. 

"  Fourthly.  But  there  is  a  passage  in  Deuteronomy  xxi,  15,  which 
is  express  to  the  point,  and  amounts  to  a  demonstration  of  God's  al- 
lowance of  plurality  of  wives.  If  a  man  have  two  wives,  one  be- 


18 

loved  and  another  hated,  and  they  have  borne  him  children,  both  the 
beloved  and  the  hated ;  and  if  the  first-born  be  hers  that  was  hated, 
then  it  shall  be,  when  he  maketh  his  sons  to  inherit  that  which  he  hath, 
that  he  may  not  make  the  son  of  the  beloved  first-born  before  the  son 
of  the  hated,  which  is,  indeed,  the  first-born,  by  giving  him  a  double 
portion  of  all  that  he  hath  ;  for  he  is  the  beginning  of  his  strength, 
and  the  right  of  the  first-born  is  his.  On  the  footing  of  this  law,  the 
marriage  of  both  women  i?  equally  lawful.  God  calls  them  both  wives, 
and  He  cannot  be  mistaken  ;  if  He  calls  them  so,  they  certainly  were 
so.  If  the  second  wife  bore  the  first  son,  that  son  was  to  inherit  be- 
fore a  son  born  afterwards  of  the  first  wife.  Here  the  issue  is  ex- 
pressly deemed  legitimate  and  inheritable  to  the  double  portion  of  the 
first-born  ;  which  could  not  be,  if  the  second  marriage  were  not  deemed 
as  lawful  and  valid  as  the  first. 

"  Fifthly.  To  say  that  a  plurality  of  wives  is  sinful  is  to  make  God 
the  author  of  sin ;  for,  not  to  forbid  that  which  is  evil,  but  even  to 
countenance  and  promote  it,  is  being  so  far  the  author  of  it,  and  ac- 
cessory to  it  in  the  highest  degree.  And  shall  we  dare  to  say,  or  even 
think,  that  this  is  chargeable  upon  Him  who  is  of  purer  eyes  than  to  be- 
hold evil,  and  who  cannot  look  on  iniquity?  (Habbakuk  i,  13.) 
God  forbid. 

"  When  God  is  upbraiding  David,  by  the  prophet  Nathan,  for  his 
ingratitude  to  his  Almighty  benefactor,  (2  Samuel,  xii,)  he  does  it  in 
the  following  terms,  verse  8  :  '  I  gave  thee  thy  master's  house,  and 
thy  mastei's  wives  unto  thy  bosom,  and  I  gave  thee  the  house  of  Is- 
rael and  Judah,  and  if  that  had  been  too  little,  I  would,  moreover, 
have  given  thee  such  and  such  things.' 

"  Can  we  suppose  God  giving  more  wives  than  one  into  David'^ 
bosom,  who  already  had  more  than  one,  if  it  was  sin  in  David  to  take 
them  ?  Can  we  imagine  that  God  would  thus  transgress  (as  it  were) 
His  own  commandment  in  one  instance,  and  so  severely  reprove  and 
chastise  David  for  breaking  it  in  another?  Is  it  not  rather  plain, 
from  the  whole  transaction,  that  David  committed  mortal  sin  in  taking 
another  living  man's  wife,  but  not  in  taking  the  widows  of  the  de- 
ceased Saul  ?  And  thus,  therefore,  though  the  law  of  God  condemned 
the  first,  yet  it  did  not  condemn  the  second. 

"  Sixthly.  When  David  took  the  wife  of  Uriah  he  was  severely 
reprimanded  by  the  prophet  Nathan,  but  after  Uriah's  death  he  takes 
the  same  woman,  though  he  had  other  wives  before,  and  no  fault  is 
found  with  him  ;  nor  is  he  charged  with  the  least  flaw  or  insincerity 
in  his  repentance  on  that  account.  The  child  which  was  the  fruit  of 
his  intercourse  with  Bathsheba,  during  her  husband  Uriah's  life,  God 
struck  to  death  with  his  own  hand.  (2  Samuel,  xii,  lo.)  Solomon, 
born  of  the  same  woman,  begotten  by  the  same  man,  in  a  state  of 
pluralily  of  wives,  is  acknowledged  by  God  himself  as  David's  law- 
ful issue,  (1  Kings,  v,  5,)  and  as  such  set  upon  his  throne.  The  law 
which  positively  excluded  bastards,  or  those  born  out  of  lawful  wed- 
lock, from  the  congregation  of  the  Lord,  even  to  the  tenth  generation, 
(Deuteronomy  xxiii,  2,)  is  wholly  inconsistent  with  Solomon  being  em- 


19 

ployed  to  build  God's  temple,  being  the  mouth  of  the  people  to  God 
in  prayer,  and  offering  sacrifices  in  the  temple  at  its  dedication,  unless 
David's  marriage  with  Bathsheba  was  a  lawful  marriage;  Solomon, 
the  lawful  i^sue  of  that  marriage  ;  consequently  a  plurality  of  wives 
no  sin,  either  against  the  primary  institution  of  marriage  or  against 
the  seventh  commandment.  But  so  far  from  Solomon  being  under 
any  disqualification  from  the  law  above  mentioned,  he  is  appointed  by 
God  himself  to  build  the  temple.  (1  Kings,  viii,  19.)  His  prayer  is 
heard,  and  the  house  is  hallowed  (chapter  ix,  3)  and  filled  with  such 
glory  that  the  priests  could  not  stand  to  minister.  (Chapter  viii,  11.) 
Solomon,  therefore,  as  well  as  Samuel,  stands  as  demonstrable  proof 
that  a  child  born  under  the  circumstances  of  a  plurality  of  wives  is 
no  bastard — God  himself  being  the  judge,  whose  judgment  is  according 
to  truth. 

"  A  more  striking  instance  of  God's  thoughts  on  the  total  difference 
between  a  plurality  of  wives  and  adultery  does  not  meet  us  anywhere 
with  more  force  and  clearness,  in  any  part  of  the  sacred  history,  than 
in  the  account  which  is  given  us  of  David  and  Bathsheba  and  their 
issue. 

"  When  David  took  Bathsheba,  she  was  another  man's  wife  ;  the 
child  which  he  begat  by  her  in  that  situation  was  begotten  in  adultery 
— and  the  thing  which  David  had  done  displeased  the  Lord.  (2  Sam- 
uel, xi,  27.)  And  what  was  the  consequence?  We  are  told  (2  Sam- 
uel, xii,  1)  the  Lord  sent  Nathan,  the  prophet,  unto  David.  Nathan 
opened  his  commission  with  a  most  beautiful  parable,  descriptive  of 
David's  crime;  this  parable  the  prophet  applies  to  the  conviction  of 
the  delinquent,  sets  it  home  upon  his  conscience,  brings  him  to  repent- 
ance, and  the  poor  penitent  finds  mercy — his  life  is  spared.  (Verse 
13.)  Yet  God  will  vindicate  the  honor  of  His  moral  government,  and 
that  in  the  most  awful  manner  the  murder  of  Uriah  is  to  be  visited 
upon  David  and  his  house.  The  sword  shall  never  depart  from  thine 
house.  (Verse  10.)  The  adultery  with  Bathsheba  was  to  be  retaliated 
in  the  most  aggravated  manner.  '  Because  thou  hast  despised  me, 
and  hast  taken  the  wife  of  Uriah,  the  Hittite,  to  be  thy  wife,  thus 
saith  the  Lord,  I  will  raise  up  evil  against  thee  out  of  thine  own  house, 
and  I  will  take  thy  wives  and  give  them  unto  thy  neighbor  before 
thine  eyes  ;  and  he  shall  lie  with  thy  wives  in  the  sight  of  the  sun  ; 
for  thou  didst  it  secretly  ;  but  I  will  do  this  thing  before  all  Israel  and 
before  the  sun.'  All  this  was  shortly  fulfilled  in  the  rebellion  and  in- 
cest of  Absalom.  (Chapter  xi,  21,  22.)  And  this  was  done  in  the 
way  of  judgment  on  David  for  taking  and  defiling  the  wife  of  Uriah, 
and  was  included  in  the  curses  threatened  (Deuteronomy  xxxviii,  30) 
to  the  despisers  of  God's  laws. 

"  As  to  the  issue  of  David's  adulterous  commerce  with  Bathsheba,  it 
is  written,  (2  Samuel,  xii,  15,)  the  Lord  struck  the  child  that  Uriah's 
wife  bare  unto  David,  and  it  was  very  sick.  What  a  dreadful  scourge 
this  was  unto  David,  who  could  not  but  read  his  crime  in  his  punish- 
ment, the  following  verses  declare,  wherein  we  find  David  almost  frantic 


20 

with  grief.  However,  the  child's  sickness  was  unto  death,  for  (verse 
18)  on  the  seventh  day  the  child  died. 

"Now  let  us  take  a  view  of  David's  act  in  taking  a  plurality  of 
wives,  when,  after  Uriah's  death,  he  added  Bathsheba  to  his  other  wives. 
(Verses  24,  25.)  And  David  comforted  Bathsheba,  his  wife,  and  went 
in  unto  her  and  lay  with  her,  and  she  bare  a  son,  and  he  called  his 
name  Solomon,  (that  maketh  peace  and  reconciliation  or  recompense,) 
and  the  Lord  loved  him.  Again  we  find  Nathan,  who  had  been  sent 
on  the  former  occasion,  sent  also  on  this,  but  with  a  very  different 
message.  And  He  (theLord)  sent  by  the  hand  of  Nathan,  the  prophet, 
and  he  called  his  name  Jedediah,  (Dilectus  Domini — Beloved  of  the 
Lord)  because  of  the  Lord — i.  e.,  because  of  the  favor  God  had  towards 
him.  (Verse  24.) 

"  Let  any  read  onward  through  the  whole  history  of  Solomon  ;  let 
them  consider  the  instances  of  God's  peculiar  favor  toward  him  al- 
ready mentioned,  and  the  many  others  that  are  to  be  found  in  the  ac- 
count we  have  of  him  :  let  them  compare  God's  dealings  with  the 
unhappy  issue  of  David's  adultery  and  this  happy  offspring  of  Bath- 
eheba,  one  of  his  many  wives,  and  if  the  allowance  and  approbation 
of  the  latter  doth  not  as  clearly  appear  as  the  condemnation  and  pun- 
ishment of  the  former,  surely  all  distinction  and  difference  must  be  at 
an  end,  and  the  Scripture  itself  lose  the  force  of  its  own  evidence. 

"  Seventhly.  I  have  mentioned  the  law  being  explained  by  the 
prophets.  These  were  extraordinary  messengers,  whom  God  raised 
up  and  sent  forth  under  a  special  commission,  not  only  to  foretell 
things  to  come,  but  to  preach  to  the  people,  to  hold  forth  the  law,  to 
point  out  their  defections  from  it,  and  to  call  them  to  repentance,  under 
the  severest  terms  of  God's  displeasure  unless  they  obeyed.  Their 
commission  in  these  respects  we  find  recorded  in  Isaiah  Iviii,  1  :  '  Cry 
aloud,  spare  not,  lift  up  thy  voice  like  a  trumpet ;  show  my  people 
their  transgression,  and  the  house  of  Jacob  their  sins.'  This  commission 
was  to  be  faithfully  executed  at  the  peril  of  the  prophet's  own  destruc- 
tion, as  appears  from  the  solemn  charge  given  to  Ezekiel,  chapter  iii, 
18  :  '  When  I  say  to  the  wicked,  thou  shalt  surely  die,  and  thou  givest 
him  not  warning,  nor  speakest  to  warn  the  wicked  to  save  his  life,  the 
same  wicked  man  shall  die  in  his  iniquity,  but  his  blood  will  I  require 
at  thine  hand.' 

"  These  prophets  executed  their  commissions  very  unfaithfully  to- 
ward God  and  the  people,  as  well  as  most  dangerously  for  themselves, 
if  a  plurality  of  wives  was  sin  against  God's  law,  for  it  was  the  common 
practice  of  the  whole  nation,  from  the  prince  on  the  throne  to  the 
lowest  of  the  people  ;  and  yet  neither  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  nor  any  of 
the  prophets,  bore  the  least  testimony  against  it.  They  reproved 
them  sharply  and  plainly  for  defiling  their  neighbors'  wives,  as  Jere- 
miah, v,  8  ;  xxix,  23,  in  which  fifth  chapter  we  not  only  find  the 
prophet  bearing  testimony  against  adultery,  but  .against  whoredom 
and  fornication,  (verse  7,)  for  that  they  assembled  themselves  by  troops 
in  the  harlots'  houses.  Not  a  word  against  polygamy.  How  is  it  possi- 


21 

ble,  in  any  reason,  to  think  that  this,  if  a  sin,  should  never  be  men- 
tioned as  such  by  God,  by  Moses,  or  any  of  the  prophets  ? 

"  Lastly.  In  the  Old  Testament,  plural  marriage  was  not  only  al- 
lowed in  all  cases,  but  in  some  commanded.  Here,  for  example,  is  the 
law,  (Deut.  xxv,  5-10:)  •  If  brethren  dwell  together,  and  one  of  them 
die  and  have  no  child,  the  wife  of  the  dead  shall  not  marry  without  unto 
a  stranger  ;  her  husband's  brother  shall  go  in  unto  her,  and  take  her  to 
him  to  wife,  and  perform  the  duty  of  a  husband's  brother  unto  her. 
And  it  shall  be  that  the  first-born  that  she  beareth  shall  succeed  in 
the  name  of  the  brother  which  is  dead,  that  his  name  be  not  put  out 
of  Israel,'  etc. 

"This  law  must  certainly  be  looked  upon  as  an  exception  from  the 
general  law,  (Leviticus  xviii,  16,)  and  the  reason  of  it  appears  in  tho 
law  itself,  namely  :  '  To  preserve  inheritances  in  the  families  to  which 
they  belonged. ' 

*  "  As  there  was  no  law  against  plurality  of  wives,  there  was 
nothing  to  exempt  a  married  man  from  the  obligation  of  marrying  his 
brother's  widow.  *  *  *  *  For  let  us  suppose  that  not  only  the 
surviving  brother,  but  all  the  near  kinsmen,  to  whom  the  marriage  of 
the  widow  and  the  redemption  of  the  inheritance  belonged,  were  mar- 
ried men — if  that  exempted  them  from  the  obligation  of  this  law — as 
they  could  not  redeem  the  inheritance  unless  they  married  the  widow, 
(Ruth  iv,  5) — the  widow  be  tempted  to  marry  a  stranger — to  put  her- 
self and  the  inheritance  into  his  hands — and  the  whole  reason  assigned 
for  the  law  itself,  that  of  raising  up  seed  to  the  deceased,  to  preserve 
the  inheritance  in  his  family,  that  his  name  be  not  put  out  of  Israel 
— fall  to  the  ground.  For  which  weighty  reasons,  as  there  was  evi- 
dently no  law  against  a  plurality  of  wives,  there  could  be  no  exemp- 
tion of  a  man  from  the  positive  duty  of  this  law  because  he  was  mar- 
ried. As  we  say,  '  Ubi  cadit  ratio,  ibi  idem  jus' 

"  I  will  now  hasten  to  the  examination  of  a  notion,  which  I  fear  is 
too  common  among  us,  and  on  which  what  is  usually  said  and  thought  on 
the  subject  of  a  plurality  of  wives  is  for  the  most  part  built ;  I  mean 
that  of  representing  Christ  as  appearing  in  the  world  as  '  a  new  law- 
giver, who  was  to  introduce  a  more  pure  and  perfect  system  of  morality 
than  that  of  the  law  which  was  given  by  Moses.'  This  horrible  blas- 
phemy against  the  holiness  and  perfection  of  God's  law,  as  well  as 
against  the  truth  of  Christ,  who  declared  that  He  came  not  to  destroy 
the  law,  but  to  fulfil  it — this  utter  contradiction  both  of  the  law  and 
Gospel — was  the  foundation  on  which  the  heretic,  Socinius,  built  all  his 
other  abominable  errors. 

"  Christ  most  solemnly  declared  that  heaven  and  earth  could  sooner 
pass  than  one  jot  or  tittle  pass  from  the  law.  Think  not,  said  He,  that 
I  am  come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil.  So  far  from  abrogating  the  law,  or 
rule  of  life,  which  had  been  delivered  by  the  hand  of  Moses,  or  setting 
up  a  new  law  in  opposition  to  it — He  came  into  the  world  to  be  subject 
to  it  in  all  things,  and  so  to  fulfil  the  whole  righteousness  of  it.  (Mat.  iii, 
15.)  To  magnify  and  make  it  honorable,  (Isaiah  xiii,  21.)  even  by 
His  obedience  unto  death.  Speaking  in  the  spirit  of  prophecy,  (Psalms 


22 

xl,  8,)  He  says  :  '  Lo,  I  come ;  in  the  volume  of  the  book  it  is  written 
of  me,  I  delight  to  do  Thy  will,  0  my  God  ;  yea,  Thy  law  is  within 
my  heart.'  And  in  His  public  ministry,  how  uniformly  doth  He 
speak  the  same  thing  ? 

"If  we  attend  to  our  Saviour's  preaching,  and  especially  to  that 
heavenly  discourse  delivered  from  the  Mount,  we  shall  find  Him  a  most 
zealous  advocate  for  the  law  of  God,  as  delivered  by  Moses.  We  shall 
find  him  stripping  it  of  the  false  glosses,  by  which  the  Jewish  rabbis 
had  obscured  or  perverted  its  meaning,  and  restoring  it  to  that  purity 
and  spirituality  by  which  it  reacheth  even  to  the  thoughts  and  intents 
of  the  heart.  For  instance,  when  He  is  about  to  enter  upon  a  faithful 
exposition  of  the  moral  law,  lest  His  hearers  should  imagine  that  what 
He  was  about  to  say  was  contrary  to  the  law  of  the  Old  Testament, 
being  so  different  from  the  teachings  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  He 
prefaces  His  discourse  with  those  remarkable  words,  (Matthew  xvii, 
17-20:)  'Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  destroy  the  law  or  the  prophets; 
I  am  not  come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil;  for  verily  I  say  unto  you,  till 
heaven  and  earth  pass  away,  one  jot  or  one  tittle  shall  not  pass  from  the 
law  till  all  be  fulfilled.5 

"  Let  us  take  a  nearer  and  more  critical  view  of  those  passages  of 
the  gospels  in  which  Christ  is  supposed  to  condemn  the  plurality  of 
wives  as  adultery.  The  first  which  I  shall  take  notice  of  as  introduc- 
tory to  the  rest  is  Matthew  v,  31,  32:  'It  hath  been  said,  whosoever 
shall  put  away  his  wife,  let  him  give  her  a  writing  of  divorcement. 
But  I  say  unto  you,  that  whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife,  saving  for 
the  cause  of  fornication,  causeth  her  to  commit  adultery,  and  whosoever 
shall  marry  her  that  is  divorced,  committeth  adultery.' 

"  The  next  Scripture  to  be  further  considered  is  Matthew  xix,  9  :  '  I 
say  unto  you,  whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife,  (except  it  be  for  forni- 
cation,) and  shall  marry  another,  committeth  adultery:  and  whoso  mar- 
rieth  her  which  is  put  away  committeth  adultery.' 

"  Christ  was  surrounded  at  this  time  by  a  great  multitude  of  people, 
who,  in  principle,  as  living  under  the  law  of  the  Old  Testament,  were 
polygamists,  and,  doubtless,  numbers  of  them  were  so  in  practice.  Many 
there  must  have  been  among  this  great  multitude  of  Jews  who  had  either 
married  two  wives  together,  or,  having  one,  took  another  to  her  arid  co- 
habited with  both.  Had  our  Lord  intended  to  have  condemned  such 
practices,  he  would  scarcely  have  made  use  of  words  which  did  not  de- 
scribe their  situation,  but  of  words  that  did.  It  is  very  plain  that  he 
that  putteth  away  his  wife  by  giving  her  a  bill  of  divorcement  could  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  man  who  took  two  wives  together,  or  one  to  an- 
other, and  cohabited  alike  with  both.  But  we  are  apt  to  construe  Scrip- 
ture by  supposing  persons,  to  whom  particular  things  are  said,  were  in 
the  circumstances  then  in  which  we  are  now ;  but  it  was  far  otherwise ; 
they  had  no  municipal  laws  against  plurality  of  wives  as  we  have.  So 
far  from  it,  their  whole  law  (as  has  been  abundantly  proved)  allowed  it. 
Which  said  law,  and  every  part  thereof,  was  at  the  time  Christ  spake 
what  is  recorded  in  Matthew  xix,  9,  in  as  full  force  and  efficacy  as  at 
the  moment  after  Moses  had  delivered  it  to  the  people.  He,  therefore, 


23 

could  no  more  state  a  plurality  of  wives  as  adultery  by  the  law  of  Israel 
than  I  can  state  it  as  high  treason  by  the  laws  of  England. 

"Can  it  be  imagined  that  Christ,  so  remarkable  for  His  precision,  so 
thoroughly  accurate  in  all  He  said  on  every  other  point,  should  use  so 
little  in  this  as  not  to  make  Himself  understood  by  His  hearer  ? 
Nay;  that  he  should  observe  so  little  precision  as  not  to  describe  an 
offence  which  we  are  to  suppose  Him  to  condemn  ?  The  most  flagrant  in- 
stances, the  most  obvious  and  palpable  definitions  of  a  plurality  of 
wives,  cannot  be  understood  from  what  He  says.  He  that  putteth 
away  his  wife  by  bill  of  divorcement,  and  marrieth  another,  does  not 
describe  a  man's  taking  two  wives  together  and  cohabiting  with  both, 
nor  a  man's  having  a  wife  and  taking  another  to  her  and  cohabiting 
with  both .  Such  was  the  Old  Testament  plurality  of  wives — not  the  put- 
ting away  one  in  order  to  take  another. 

"Now,  if  a  plurality  of  wives  were  unlawful,  and,  of  course,  null 
and  void  before  God,  then  was  not  Christ  legally  descended  of  the 
house  and  lineage  of  David,  but  from  a  spurious  issue,  not  only 
in  the  instances  above  mentioned,  but  also  in  others  which  might  be 
mentioned.  So  that  when  Christ  is  supposed  to  condemn  a  plurality  of 
wives  as  adultery,  contrary  to  the  institution  of  marriage,  and  to  the 
seventh  commandment,  He  must  at  the  same  time  be  supposed  to  de- 
feat His  own  title  to  the  character  of  the  Messiah,  concerning  whom 
God  had  sworn  to  David,  that  of  the  fruit  of  his  loins,  according  to  the 
flesh,  He  would  raise  up  Christ  to  sit  on  His  throne.  (See  Acts  ii,  30, 
with  Psalms  cxxxii,  11.) 

"The  lawfulness  of  a  plurality  of  wives  must  of  course  be  estab- 
lished, or  the  whole  of  Christianity  must  fall  to  the  ground,  and  Christ 
not  be  He  that  was  to  come,  but  we  must  look  for  another.  (Matthew 
xi,  3.) 

"In  none  of  St.  Paul's  epistles,  nor  in  the  seven  awful  epistles 
which  St.  John  was  commanded  to  write  to  the  seven  churches  in  Asia, 
is  a  plurality  of  wives  found  among  the  crimes  for  which  they  were  re- 
proved. Every  other  species  of  commerce  between  the  sexes  is  dis- 
tinctly and  often  mentioned  ;  this  not  once,  except  on  the  woman's  side, 
as  Romans  vii,  3;  but  had  it  been  sinful  and  against  the  law  on  the 
man's  side,  it  is  inconceivable  that  it  should  not  have  been  mentioned 
on  both  sides  equally. 

"Grotius  observes,  'Among  the  Pagans  few  nations  were  content 
with  one  wife,'  and  we  do  not  find  the  apostle  making  this  any  bar  to 
church  membership.  It  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  if  a  plurality  of 
wives  were  sinful — that  is  to  say,  an  offence  against  the  law  of  God — 
the  great  apostle  should  be  so  liberal  and  so  particular,  in  his  epistles  to 
the  Corinthians,  in  the  condemnation  of  every  other  species  of  illicit 
commerce  between  the  sexes,  and  yet  omit  this  in  the  black  catalogue, 
(chapter  vi,  9,  &c.;)  or  that  he  should  not  be  as  zealous  for  the  honor  of 
the  law  of  marriage,  or  of  the  seventh  commandment,  which  was  evi- 
dently to  maintain  it,  as  Ezra  was  for  that  positive  law  of  Deuteronomy 
vii,  3,  against  the  marrying  with  heathens.  Ezra  made  the  Jews  put 
away  the  wives  which  they  had  illegally  taken,  and  even  the  very  children 


24 

which  they  had  by  them;  how  is  it  that  Paul,  if  a  plurality  of  wives 
was  sinful,  did  not  make  the  Gentile  and  the  Jewish  converts  put  away 
every  wife  but  the  first,  and  annul  every  other  contract? 

"No  man  could  have  a  fairer  opportunity  to  bear  his  testimony  against 
a  national  sin  than  the  Baptist  had;  for  it  is  said,  (Matthew  iii,  5:) 
'  Then  went  out  to  him  Jerusalem  and  all  Judea,  and  all  the  region 
round  about  Jordan,  and  among  the  numbers  who  were  baptized  of  him 
in  Jordan,  confessing  their  sins,  (verse  6,)  there  were  many  harlots. 
(Chapter  xxi,  32.)  So  that  it  is  evident  he  did  not  spare  to  inveigh 
most  sharply  against  the  sin  of  fleshy  uncleanliness;  had  a  plurality  of 
wives  been  of  this  kind,  he  doubtless  would  have  preached  against  it, 
which  if  he  had,  some  trace  would  most  probably  have  been  left  of  it, 
as  there  is  of  his  preaching  against  the  sin  of  whoredom,  by  the  harlots 
being  said  to  have  believed  on  him :  which  they  certainly  would  not 
have  done  any  more  than  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  (Matthew  xxi, 
32,)  if  the  preacher  had  not  awakened  them  to  a  deep  and  real  sense  of 
their  guilt,  by  setting  forth  the  heniousness  of  their  sin.  He  exerted 
his  eloquence  also  against  public  aggrievances,  such  as  the  extortion  of 
the  public  officers  of  the  revenue — the  publicans — tax-gatherers — like- 
wise against  the  oppressive  methods  used  by  the  soldiery,  who  made  it 
a  custom  either  to  take  people's  goods  by  violence,  or  to  defraud  them 
of  their  property,  by  extorting  it  under  the  terror  of  false  accusation. 
These  were  public  grievances,  against  which  the  Baptist  bore  such  open 
testimony,  that  the  soldiers  and  publicans  came  to  him,  saying  :  'What 
shall  we  do?'  This  being  the  case,  is  it  conceivable  that  a  man  of  the 
Baptist's  character,  who  was  so  zealous  for  the  honor  of  the  law  as  to 
reprove  even  a  king  to  his  face  for  adultery,  should  suffer,  if  a  plurality  of 
wives  be  adultery,  a  whole  nation,  as  it  were,  of  public  adulterers,  to 
stand  before  him,  and  not  bear  the  least  testimony  against  them  ?  I  do 
say  this  is  a  conclusive  but  is  surely  a  strong  presumptive  argument,  thta 
in  the  Baptist's  views  of  the  matter,  a  plurality  of  wives,  whoredom, 
and  adultery  were  by  no  means  the  same  thing. 

"While  this  system  of  a  plurality  of  wives  was  reverenced  and  ob- 
served, we  read  of  no  adultery,  whoredom,  and  common  prostitution 
of  women  among  the  daughters  of  Israel ;  no  brothels,  street  walking, 
venereal  diseases;  no  child-murder,  and  those  other  appendages  of 
female  ruin  which  are  too  horrid  to  particularize.  Nor  were  these  things 
possible,  which,  since  the  revocation  of  the  Divine  system  and  the  es- 
tablishment of  human  systems,  are  become  inevitable.  The  supposing 
our  blessed  Saviour  came  to  destroy  the  Divine  law,  or  alter  it  with 
respect  to  marriage,  is  to  suppose  Him  laying  a  foundation  for  the  mis- 
ery and  destruction  of  the  weaker  sex." 

Rev.  Messrs.  Conybeare  and  Howson,  clergymen  of  the  Church  of 
England,  joint  authors  of  "  The  Life  and  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,"  pub- 
lished near  the  middle  of  the  present  century,  in  their  commentary 
upon  the  passage  in  the  epistle  to  Timothy,  relative  to  the  one  wife  of 
a  bishop,  say  : 


25 

' '  In  the  corrupt  facility  of  divorce  allowed  both  by  the  Greek  and 
Roman  law,  it  was  very  common  for  man  and  wife  to  separate  and 
marry  other  parties  during  the  life  of  one  another.  Thus  a  man  might 
have  three  or  four  living  wives;  or  rather  women  who  had  all  success- 
ively been  his  wives.  *  *  *  A  similar  code  is  [now]  unhappily  to 
be  found  in  Mauritius ;  there  *  *  *  it  is  not  uncommon  to  meet 
in  society  three  or  four  women  who  have  all  been  the  wives  of  the  same 
man.  *  *  We  believe  it  is  this  kind  of  successive  polygamy, 

rather  than  simultaneous  polygamy,  which  is  here  spoken  of  as  disquali- 
fying for  the  Presbyterate.     So  Beza." 

Rev.  David  A.  Allen,  D.  D.,  a  Congregationalist,  and  a  missionary 
of  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions,  after  a 
professional  residence  of  twenty-five  years  in  Hindoostan,  published  a 
work  in  1856,  entitled  "  India,  Ancient  and  Modern,"  in  which  he 
says,  pp.  551-3  : 

"  Polygamy  is  practised  in  India  among  .the  Hindoos,  the  Moham- 
medans, the  Loroastrians,  and  the  Jews.  It  is  allowed  and  recognized 
by  the  Institutes  of  Menu,  by  the  Koran,  by  the  Lendavesta,  and,  the 
Jews  believe,  by  their  scriptures,  the  Old  Testament.  It  is  recognized 
by  all  the  courts  in  India,  native  and  English.  The  laws  of  the  British 
Parliment  recognize  polygamy  among  all  these  classes,  when  the  mar- 
riage connection  has  been  formed  according  to  the  principles  of  their  re- 
ligion and  to  their  established  forms  and  usages.  The  marriage  of  a 
Hindoo  or  a  Mahommedan  with  his  second  or  third  wife  is  just  as  valid 
and  as  legally  binding  on  all  parties  as  his  marriage  with  his  first  wife ; 
just  as  valid  as  the  marriage  of  any  Christian  in  the  Church  of  England. 
This  man  cannot  divorce  any  of  his  wives  if  he  would, 
and  it  would  be  great  injustice  and  cruelty  to  them  and  their  children 
if  he  should.  *  *  *  *  His  having  become  a  Christian  and  em- 
braced a  purer  faith  will  not  release  him  from  those  obligations  in  view 
of  the  English  Government  and  courts,  or  of  the  native  population. 
Should  he  put  them  away,  or  all  but  one,  they  will  still  be  legally  his 
wives,  and  cannot  be  married  to  another  man.  And  further,  they  have 
done  nothing  to  deserve  such  unkindness,  cruelty,  and  disgrace  at  his 
hands.  *  *  *  *  So  far  from  vie  wing  polygamy  as  morally  wrong, 
they  not  unfrequently  take  a  second  or  third  wife  with  much  reluctance, 
and  from  a  painful  sense  of  duty  to  perpetuate  their  name,  their  family, 
and  their  inheritance." 

In  an  appendix  to  this  work,  Dr.  Allen  informs  the  world  that  the 
subject  of  polygamy  had  been  brought  before  the  Calcutta  Missionary 
Conference,  a  body  composed  of  the  missionaries' of  the  various  mis- 
sionary societies  of  Great  Britain  and  America,  and  including  Bap- 
tists, Congregationalists,  Episcopalians,  Methodists,  Presbyterians, 
and  others,  in  consequence  of  the  application  of  Christian  converts, 


26 

who,  having  several  wives  each,  to  whom  they  had  been  legally 
married,  now  desired  admittance  into  the  Christian  Churches.  After 
frequent  consultations  and  much  consideration,  the  conference,  says 
Dr.  Allen,  came  unanimously  to  the  following  conclusion  : 

"  If  a  convert,  before  becoming  a  Christian,  has  married  more  wives 
than  one,  in  accordance  with  the  practice  of  the  Jewish  and  primitive 
Christian  churches,  he  shall  be  permitted  to  keep  them  all,  but  such  a 
person  is  not  eligible  to  any  office  in  the  church" 

These  facts,  as  Dr.  Allen  asserts  them,  have  a  direct  and  an  im- 
portant bearing  upon  this  bill  and  the  accompanying  report.  They 
prove  that  one  of  its  main  charges,  that  polygamy  is  abhorrent  to 
every  Christian  nation,  is  false,  for  the  British  Empire  is  a  Christian 
nation,  and  Hindoostan  is  an  integral  part  of  that  empire,  as  much  so 
as  its  American  provinces  are,  or  as  Ireland  is.  Hindoostan  is  a  civil- 
ized country,  with  school  and  colleges,  and  factories  and  railroads, 
and  telegraphs  and  newspapers.  Yet  the  great  mass  of  the  people, 
comprising  more  than  eighty  millions,  are  polygamists,  and  as  such 
they  are  recognized  and  protected  by  the  laws  of  the  British  Parlia- 
ment, and  the  courts  of  the  Queen's  Bench ;  and  the  English  and 
American  missionaries  of  the  gospel  who  reside  there,  and  have  re- 
sided there  many  years,  and  who  know  the  practical  working  of 
polygamy,  have  assembled  together  in  solemn  conference  and  unani- 
mously pronounced  it  to  be  right,  and  in  accordance  with  the  practice 
of  the  primitive  Christian  churches;  and  the  French,  the  Spanish, 
the  Dutch,  the  Portuguese,  and  other  Christian  nations  are  known  to 
pursue  a  similar  policy,  and  to  allow  the  different  peoples  under  their 
governments,  the  free  and  unmolested  enjoyment  of  their  own  religions 
and  their  own  marriage  system,  whether  they  are  monogamous  or 
polygamous. 

I  trust,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  I  have  not  wearied  your  patience  by  this 
citation  of  learned  authorities  upon  the  antiquity  and  universality  of 
the  polygamic  doctrines.  My  object  in  this  part  of  my  argument  is 
not  to  prove  that  polygamy  is  right  or  wrong,  but  simply  to  illustrate 
that  a  doctrine,  the  practice  of  which  has  repeatedly  been  commanded 
by  the  Almighty ;  which  was  the  rule  of  life  with  the  Jews  at  the 
time  they  were  the  chosen  people  of  God,  and  were,  in  all  things, 
governed  by  His  dictation ;  which  has  among  its  supporters  many  of 
the  most  eminent  writers  of  the  Christian  church  of  all  ages,  and 
which  is  now  sanctioned  by  law  and  usage  in  many  of  the  christianized 
provinces  of  the  British  Empire,  is  not  wrong  in  itself.  It  is  a  doc- 


27 

trine,  the  practice  of  which,  from  the  precedents  cited,  is  clearly  not 
inconsistent  with  the  highest  purity  of  character,  and  the  most  exem- 
plary Christian  life.  My  opponents  may  argue  that  it  is  unsuited  to 
the  civilization  of  the  age,  or  is  the  offspring  of  a  religious  delusion  ;  but 
if  so,  its  remedy  is  to  be  sought  through  persuasion,  and  not  by  the  exer- 
cise of  force  ;  it  is  the  field  for  the  missionary  and  not  for  the  jurist  or  sol- 
dier. It  is  a  noble  and  a  Christian  work  to  purify  and  enlighten  a  be- 
nighted soul ;  to  lift  up  those  who  are  fallen  and  ready  to  perish ;  but  from 
all  the  pulpits  of  the  land  comes  up  the  cry  that  the  fields  are  white  for 
the  harvest,  while  the  laborers  are  few.  So  soon,  however,  as  the 
Luthers,  the  Melancthons,  the  Whitfields  of  to-day,  have  wiped  out 
the  immorality,  licentiousness  and  crime  of  the  older  communities,  and 
have  made  their  average  morality  equal  to  that  of  the  city  of  Salt 
Lake,  let  them  transfer  their  field  of  labor  to  the  wilds  of  Utah,  and 
may  God  forever  prosper  the  right. 

I  trust,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  men  abler  and  more  learned  in  the  law 
than  I,  will  discuss  the  legal  monstrosities  of  this  bill,  fraught  with 
evil,  as  it  is,  not  only  to  the  citizen  of  Utah,  but  to  the  nation  at 
large  ;  but  must  be  pardoned  for  calling  special  attention  to  the  seventh 
section,  which  gives  to  a  single  officer,  the  United  States  marshal,  with 
the  clerk  of  the  court,  the  absolute  right  of  selecting  a  jury  ;  and,  fur- 
ther, to  the  10th  section,  which  provides  that  persons  entertaining  an 
objectionable  religious  theory — not  those  who  have  been  guilty  of  the 
practice  of  polygamy,  but  who  have  simply  a  belief  in  the  abstract 
theory  of  plural  marriage — shall  be  disqualified  as  jurors. 

To  see  what  a  fearful  blow  this  is  at  the  very  foundation  of  our  lib- 
erties ;  what  a  disastrous  precedent  for  future  tyranny,  let  us  recall  for 
a  moment  the  history  of  the  trial  by  jury ;  something  with  which  all 
are  as  familiar  as  with  the  decalogue,  but  which,  like  the  ten 
commandments,  may  occasionally  be  recalled  with  profit.  Jury  trial 
was  first  known  as  a  trial  per  pais  ;  by  the  country  ;  and  the  theory 
was,  that  when  a  crime  had  been  committed,  the  whole  community 
came  together  and  sat  in  judgment  upon  the  offender.  This  process 
becoming  cumbersome  as  population  increased,  twelve  men  were  drawn 
ly  lot  from  the  country,  thus  securing,  as  was  supposed,  a  representa- 
tion of  the  average  public  sentiment  of  the  whole  country,  and  which 
was  further  secured  by  requiring  the  finding  of  the  jury  to  be  unani- 
mous. 

A  fair  trial  by  jury,  by  our  Anglo-Saxon  ancestors,  was  regarded  aa 


28 

so  precious,  that  in  Magna  Charta  it  is  more  than  once  insisted  on  as 
the  principal  bulwark  of  English  liberty. 

Blackstone  says  of  it :  "  It  is  the  glory  of  the  English  law.  It  is 
the  most  transcendent  privilege  which  any  subject  can  enjoy  or  wish 
for,  that  he  cannot  be  affected  either  in  his  property,  his  liberty  or 
his  person,  but  by  the  unanimous  consent  of  twelve  of  his  neighbors 
and  equals ;  a  provision  which  has,  under  Providence,  secured  the 
just  liberties  of  this  nation  for  a  long  succession  of  ages." 

•  Our  own  people  have  been  no  whit  behind  the  English  in  their 
high  appreciation  of  the  trial  by  jury.  In  the  original  Federal  Con- 
stitution, it  was  provided  simply  that  the  "  trial  of  all  crimes,  except 
in  cases  of  impeachment,  shall  be  by  jury."  The  framers  of  the 
Constitution  considered  that  the  meaning  of  "trial  by  jury  "  was 
sufficiently  settled  by  long  established  usage  and  legal  precedent,  and 
that  the  provision  just  cited  was  sufficient.  But  such  was  not  the 
view  of  the  people.  One  of  the  most  serious  objections  to  the  adoption 
of  the  Constitution  by  the  States  was  its  lack  of  clearness  upon  this 
most  vital  point,  and  Alexander  Hamilton,  in  one  of  the  ablest  and 
most  carefully  considered  numbers  of  The  Federalist,  endeavored  to 
explain  away  this  objection.  The  Constitution  was  adopted,  but  the 
nation  was  not  satisfied ;  and  one  of  the  earliest  amendments  to  that 
instrument  further  provided  that  "  no  person  shall  be  held  to  answer 
for  a  capital  or  otherwise  infamous  crime  unless  on  a  presentment  or 
indictment  of  a  grand  jury,"  and  that  "  in  all  criminal  prosecutions, 
the  accused  shall  enjoy  the  right  to  a  speedy  and  public  trial  by  an 
impartial  jury  of  the  State  and  district  wherein  the  crime  shall  have 
been  committed,  which  district  shall  have  been  previously  ascer- 
tained by  law." 

Thus,  Mr.  Speaker,  it  will  be  observed  with  what  scrupulous  solici- 
tude our  ancestors  watched  over  this  great  safeguard  of  the  liberties 
of  the  people.  Nothing  was  left  to  inference  or  established  precedent, 
but  to  every  citizen  was  guaranteed  in  this  most  solemn  manner  an 
impartial  trial  by  a  jury  of  his  neighbors  and  his  peers,  residents  of 
the  district  where  the  offence  was  charged. 

Now,  sir,  is  there  any  member  of  this  House  who  will  claim  or 
pretend  that  the  provisions  of  this  bill  are  not  in  violation  of  this 
most  sacred  feature  in  our  bill  of  rights  ?  The  trial  by  jury  by  this 
bill  is  worse  than  abolished,  for  its  form — a  sickening  farce — remains 
while  its  spirit  is  utterly  gone.  A  packed  jury  is  worse  than  no  jury 
at  all.  The  merest  tyro  in  the  law,  knows  that  the  essence  of  a  trial 


29 

by  jury  consists  in  the  fact  that  the  accused  is  tried  by  a  jury  drawn 
by  lot  from  among  his  neighbors ;  a  jury  drawn  without  previous 
knowledge,  choice,  or  selection  on  the  part  of  the  Government ;  a 
jury  which  will  be  a  fair  epitome  of  the  district  where  the  offence  is 
charged,  and  thus  such  a  tribunal,  as  will  agree  to  no  verdict  except 
guch  as,  substantially,  the  whole  community  would  agree  to,  if  present 
and  taking  part  in  the  trial.  Any  other  system  of  trial  by  jury  is  a 
mockery  and  a  farce.  The  standard  of  public  morality  varies  greatly 
in  a  country  so  vast  as  ours,  and  the  principle  of  a  jury  trial  recog- 
nizes this  fact,  and  wisely  provides,  in  effect,  that  no  person  shall  be 
punished  who,  when  brought  to  the  bar  of  public  opinion  in  the  com- 
munity where  the  alleged  offence  is  committed,  is  not  adjudged  to 
have  been  guilty  of  a  crime.  This  most  unconstitutional  and  wicked 
bill  before  us,  defies  all  these  well-established  principles,  and  strikes 
at  the  root  of  the  dearest  rights  of  the  citizen.  I  have  an  earnest  and 
abiding  faith  in  the  bright  future  of  my  native  land  ;  but  if  our  national 
career,  as  we  may  fondly  hope,  shall  stretch  out  before  us  its  unend- 
ing glories,  it  will  be  because  of  the  prompt  and  decisive  rebuke,  by 
the  representatives  of  the  people  here,  of  all  such  legislation  as  that 
sought  in  the  bill  before  us. 

I  have  touched  more  fully,  Mr.  Speaker,  upon  the  feature  of  the 
bill  virtually  abolishing  jury  trial,  than  upon  any  other,  because  of  its 
more  conspicuous  disregard  of  constitutional  right.  But  the  whole 
bill,  from  first  to  last,  is  most  damnable  in  its  provisions,  and  most 
unworthy  of  consideration  by  the  representatives  of  a  free  people. 
This  is  an  age  of  great  religious  toleration.  This  bill  recalls  the 
fearful  days  of  the  Spanish  inquisition,  or  the  days  when,  in  New 
England,  Quakers  were  persecuted  or  banished,  and  witches  burned 
at  the  stake.  It  is  but  a  short  time  since  the  country  hailed  with 
satisfaction  a  treaty  negotiated  on  the  part  of  a  Pagan  nation  through 
the  efforts  of  a  former  member  of  this  body,  and  whose  recent  death 
has  filled  our  hearts  with  sadness,  whereby  the  polygamous  Chinese 
emigrants  to  our  shores  are  protected  in  the  enjoyment  of  their 
idolatrous  faith,  and  may  erect  their  temples,  stocked  with  idols,  and 
perform  their,  to  us,  heathenish  worship  in  every  part  of  our  land 
unquestioned.  And  while  the  civilized  nations  of  Europe  have  com- 
bined to  sustain  and  perpetuate  a  heathen  nation  practising  polygamy 
in  its  lowest  form,  and  are  hailing  with  acclamation  the  approach  of 
its  head,  the  American  Congress  is  actually  deliberating  over  a  bill 


30 

which  contemplates  the  destruction  of  an  industrious  people,  and  the 
expulsion  of  the  great  organizer  of  border  civilization.  Can  it  be 
possible  that  the  national  Congress  will  even  for  a  moment,  seriously 
contemplate  the  persecution  or  annihilation  of  an  integral  portion  of 
our  citizens,  whose  industry  and  material  development  are  the  nation's 
pride,  because  of  a  slight  difference  in  their  religious  faith  ?  A  dif- 
ference, too,  not  upon  the  fundamental  truths  of  our  common  Chris- 
tianity, but  because  of  their  conscientious  adherence  to  what  was  once 
no  impropriety  even,  but  a  virtue  ?  This  toleration  in  matters  of 
religion,  which  is  perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  feature  of  our  civil- 
ization, arises  not  from  any  indifference  to  the  sacred  truths  of  Chris- 
tianity, but  from  an  abiding  faith  in  their  impregnability — a  national 
conviction  that  truth  is  mighty  and  will  prevail.  We  have  adopted 
as  our  motto  the  sentiment  of  Paul :  '  'Try  all  things ;  prove  all  things, 
and  hold  fast  to  that  which  is  good.' '  The  ancient  Jewish  rabbi,  in 
Jiis  serene  confidence  that  God  would  remember  his  own,  was  typical 
of  the  spirit  of  our  age:  "Refrain  from  these  men  and  let  them 
alone,  for  if  this  counsel  or  this  work  be  of  God,  ye  cannot  overthrow 
it;  but  if  it  be  of  men,  it  will  come  to  nought." 

I  have  the  honor  of  representing  here  a  constituency  probably  the 
most  vigorously  lied  about  of  any  people  in  the  nation.  I  should 
insult  the  good  sense  of  this  House  and  of  the  American  people  did  I 
stoop  to  a  refutation  of  the  countless  falsehoods  which  have  been  cir- 
culated for  years  in  reference  to  the  people  of  Utah.  These  falsehoods 
have  a  common  origin — a  desire  to  plunder  the  treasury  of  the  nation. 
They  are  the  children  of  a  horde  of  bankrupt  speculators,  anxious  to 
grow  rich  through  the  sacrifice  even  of  human  life.  During  the  ad- 
ministration of  Mr.  Buchanan,  a  Mormon  war  was  inaugurated,  in  great 
measure  through  the  statements  of  Judge  W.  W.  Drummond,  a  man 
of  infamous  character  and  life,  and  who  is  cited  as  authority  in  the 
report  accompanying  this  bill.  His  statement,  as  there  published, 
that  the  Mormons  had  destroyed  all  the  records,  papers,  &c.,  of  the 
supreme  Federal  court  of  the  Territory,  and  grossly  insulted  the  Federal 
officers  for  opposing  such  destruction,  was,  as  I  have  been  informed  by 
unquestionable  authority,  one  of,  if  not  the  principal  cause  of  the  so- 
called  Mormon  war.  An  army  was  sent  to  Utah ;  twenty  or  thirty 
millions  of  dollars  were  expended,  before  the  Government  bethought 
itself  to  inquire  whether  such  statements  were  true ;  then  inquiry 
was  made,  and  it  was  learned  that  the  whole  statement  was  entirely 


31 

false;  that  the  records  were  perfect  and  unimpaired.*  Whereupon^ 
the  war  ended,  but  not  until  colossal  fortunes  were  accumulated  by 
the  hangers-on  and  contractors  for  the  army,  who  had  incited  the 
whole  affair.  These  men,  and  numerous  would-be  imitators,  long  for 
the  return  of  that  golden  age.  They  fill  the  ears  of  the  public  with 
slanders  and  with  falsehoods;  that  murders  are  rife;  that  life  and 
property  are  unsafe  in  Utah  without  the  presence  of  large  armies. 
They  have  even  sometimes  induced  Federal  territorial  officers,  through 
ignorance  or  design,  to  become  their  tools  to  help  forward  their  infa- 
mous work.  But  since  the  railroad  was  completed,  many  of  the 
American  people  have  looked  for  themselves.  They  see  in  Utah  the 
most  peaceful  and  persistently  industrious  people  on  the  continent. 
They  judge  the  tree  by  its  fruits.  They  read  that  a  community 
given  up  to  lust  does  not  build  factories  and  fill  the  land  with  thrifty 
farms.  That  a  nation  of  thieves  and  murderers  do  not  live  without 
intoxicating  liquors,  and  become  famous  for  the  products  of  their 
dairies,  orchards,  and  gardens.  A  corrupt  tree  bringeth  not  forth  the 
fruits  of  temperance,  Christianity,  industry  ^nd  order. 

Mr.  Speaker,  those  who  have  been  so  kind  and  indulgent  as  to 
follow  me  thus  far  will  have  observed  that  I  have  aimed,  as  best  I 
might,  to  show— 

\ .  That  under  our  Constitution  we  are  entitled  to  be  protected  in 
the  full  and  free  enjoyment  of  our  religious  faith. 

2.  That  our  views  of  the  marriage  relation  are  an  essential  portion 
of  our  religious  faith. 

3.  That  in  considering  the  cognizance  of  the  marriage  relation  as 
within  the   province   of  church   regulations,  we   are   practically  in 
accord  with  all  other  Christian  denominations. 


Extract  from  report  of  Governor  Gumming  : 

EXECUTIVE  OFFICE, 

GREAT  SALT  LAKE  CITY,  U.  T.,  May  2,  1858. 

gm_  *  *  ##**•** 

Since  my  arrival,  I  have  been  employed  in  examining  the  records  of  the  supreme 
and  district  courts,  which  I  am  now  prepared  to  report  upon  as  being  perfect  and 
unimpaired.  This  will  doubtless  be  acceptable  information  to  those  who  have  en- 
tertained an  impression  to  the  contrary. 

I  have  also  examined  the  legislative  records  and  other  books  belonging  to  the 
office  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  which  are  in  perfect  preservation. 

%  %      '          -%  -.•:-  *  *  *  *  # 

Very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

A.  GUMMING, 

Governor  of  Utah. 

Hon.  LEWIS  CASS, 

Secretary  of  State,  Washington,  1).  L. 


32 

V  4.  That  in  our  views  of  the  marriage  relation  as  a  part  of  our 
religious  belief,  we  are  entitled  to  immunity  from  persecution  under 
the  Constitution  if  such  views  are  sincerely  held  ;  that  if  such  views 
are  erroneous,  their  eradication  must  be  by  argument  and  not  by  force. 

5.  That  of  our  sincerity  we  have  both  by  words,  and  works,  and 
sufferings,  given  for  nearly  40  years,  abundant  proof. 

6.  That  the  bill,  in  practically  abolishing  trial  by  jury,  as  well  as 
in  many  other  respects,  is  unconstitutional,  uncalled  for,  and  in  direct 
opposition  to  that  toleration  in  religious  belief  which  is  characteristic 
of  the  nation  and  the  age. 

It  is  not  permitted,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  any  one  man  should  sit  as 
the  judge  of  any  other  as  regards  his  religious  belief.  This  is  a 
matter  which  rests  solely  between  each  individual  and  his  God.  The 
responsibility  cannot  be  shifted  or  divided.  It  is  a  matter  outside 
the  domain  of  legislative  action.  The  world  is  full  of  religious  error 
and  delusion,  but  its  eradication  is  the  work  of  the  moralist  and  not 
of  the  legislator.  Our  Constitution  throws  over  all  sincere  worship- 
pers, at  whatever  shrine,  its  guarantee  of  absolute  protection.  The 
moment  we  assume  to  judge  of  the  truthfulness  or  error  of  any  creed, 
the  constitutional  guarantee  is  a  mockery  and  a  sham. 

Three  times  have  rny  people  been  dispersed  by  mob  violence,  and 
each  time  they  have  arisen  stronger  from  the  conflict ;  and  now  the 
doctrine  of  violence  is  proposed  in  Congress.  It  may  be  the  will  of 
the  Lord  that,  to  unite  and  purify  us,  it  is  necessary  for  further  vio- 
lence, suffering  and  blood.  If  so,  we  humbly  and  reverently  submit 
to  the  will  of  Him  in  whose  hands  are  all  the  issues  of  human  life. 
Heretofore  we  have  suffered  from  the  violence  of  the  mob  ;  now,  the 
mob  are  to  be  clothed  in  the  authority  of  an  unconstitutional  and 
oppressive  law.  If  this  course  be  decided  upon,  I  can  only  say  that 
the  hand  that  smites  us  smites  the  most  sacred  guarantees  of  the 
Constitution,  and  the  blind  Samson,  breaking  the  pillars,  pulls  down 
upon  friend  and.  foe  alike  the  ruins  of  the  State. 


41sT  CONGRESS,  j  SENATE.  ( Mis.  Doo. 

2d  Session,      j  j  No.  112. 


MEMOEIAL 

ADOPTED    BY 

CITIZENS  OF  SALT  LAKE  CITY,  UTAH  TERRITORY, 

AT 

A  mass  meeting  held  in  said  city  March  31,  1870,  remonstrating 
against  the  passage  of  the  bill  (H.  R.  No.  1089)  "  in  aid  of  the 
execution  of  the  laws  in  the  Territory  of  Utah,  and  for  other 
purposes." 


APRIL  12,   1870. — Referred  to  the  Committee  on  Territories  and  ordered  to  be 

printed. 


To  the  honorable  the  Senate  and  House   of  Representatives  of  the 
United  States  in  Congress  assembled  : 

GENTLEMEN — It  is  with  no  ordinary  concern  that  we  have  learned 
of  the  passage  by  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  House  bill  No. 
1089,  entitled  "A  bill  in  aid  of  the  execution  of  the  laws  in  Utah, 
and  for  other  purposes,"  commonly  known  as  "  the  Cullom  bill," 
against  which  we  desire  to  enter  our  most  earnest  and  unqualified 
protest,  and  appeal  against  its  passage  by  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States,  or  beg  its  reconsideration  by  the  House  of  Representatives. 
We  are  sure  you  will  bear  with  us  while  we  present  for  your  consid- 
eration some  of  the  reasons  why  this  bill  should  not  become  law 

Gentlemen  of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  :  0 
150,000  estimated  population  of  the  Territory  of  Utah,  it  is  well 
known  that  all  except  from  five  thousand  to  ten  thousand  are  mem- 
bers of  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter-day  Saints,  usually 
called  Mormons.  These  are  essentially  the  people  of  this  Territory  ; 
they  have  settled  it,  reclaimed  the  desert  waste,  cultivated  it,  subdued 
the  Indians,  opened  means  of  communication,  made  roads,  built  cities, 
towns,  and  settlements,  established  government,  encouraged  education, 
and  brought  into  being  a  new  State  to  add  lustre  to  the  national 
galaxy  of  our  glorious  Union.  And  we,  the  people  who  have  done 
this,  are  believers  in  the  principle  of  plural  marriage  or  polygamy, 
not  simply  as  an  elevating  social  relationship  and  a  preventive  of 
many  terrible  evils  which  afflict  our  race,  but  as  a  principle  revealed 
by  God,  underlying  our  every  hope  of  eternal  salvation  and  happiness 
in  heaven.  We  believe  in  the  pre-existence  of  the  spirits  of  men; 
that  God  is  the  author  of  our  being ;  that  marriage  is  ordained  as  the 
legitimate  source  by  which  mankind  obtained  an  existence  in  this 

33 


34 

probation  on  the  earth ;  that  the  marriage  relation  exists  and  extends 
throughout  eternity,  and  that  without  it  no  man  can  obtain  an  exalta- 
tion in  the  celestial  kingdom  of  God.  The  revelation  commanding 
the  principle  of  plural  marriage,  given  by  God  through  Joseph  Smith 
to  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter-day  Saints,  in  its  first  para- 
graph has  the  following  language  :  "  Behold,  I  reveal  unto  you  a  new 
and  everlasting  covenant ;  and  if  ye  abide  not  that  covenant,  then  are 
ye  damned ;  for  no  one  can  reject  this  covenant  and  be  permitted  to 
enter  into  my  glory."  With  this  language  before  us,  we  cannot  view 
plural  marriage  in  any  other  light  than  as  a  vital  principle  of  our 
religion.  Let  the  revelation  appear  in  the  eyes  of  others  as  it  may, 
to  us  it  is  a  divine  command,  of  equal  force  with  any  ever  given  by 
the  Creator  of  the  world  to  His  children  in  the  flesh. 

The  Bible  confessedly  stands  in  our  nation  as  the  foundation  on 
which  all  law  is  based.  It  is  the  fountain  from  which  our  ideas  of 
right  and  wrong  are  drawn,  and  it  gives  shape  and  force  to  our  mo- 
rality. Yet  it  sustains  plural  marriage,  and  in  no  instance  does  it 
condemn  that  institution.  Not  only  having,  therefore,  a  revelation 
from  God  making  the  belief  and  practice  of  this  principle  obligatory 
upon  us,  we  have  the  warrant  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  the  example 
of  prophets  and  righteous  men  whom  God  loved,  honored,  and  blessed. 
And  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  when  this  principle  was  promul- 
gated, and  the*  people  of  this  Territory  entered  upon  its  practice,  it 
was  not  a  crime.  God  revealed  it  to  us.  His  divine  word,  as  con- 
tained in  the  Bible  which  we  had  been  taught  to  venerate  and  regard 
as  holy,  upheld  it,  and  there  was  no  law  applicable  to  us  making  our 
belief  or  practice  of  it  criminal.  It  is  no  crime  in  this  Territory  to- 
day, only  as  the  law  of  1862,  passed  long  years  after  our  adoption  of 
this  principle  as  a  part  of  our  religious  faith,  makes  it  such.  The 
law  of  1862  is  now  a  fact;  one  proscription  gives  strength  to  another. 
What  yesterday  was  opinion  is  liable  to-day  to  be  law.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  we  earnestly  and  respectfully  remonstrate  and  protest 
against  the  passage  of  the  bill  now  before  the  honorable  Senate,  feeling 
assured  that,  while  it  cannot  accomplish  any  possible  good,  it  may 
result  in  a  great  amount  of  misery. 

It  gives  us  no  alternative  but  the  cruel  one  of  rejecting  God's  com- 
mand and  abjuring  our  religion,  or  disobeying  the  authority  of  a 
government  we  desire  to  honor  and  respect. 

It  is  in  direct  violation  of  the  first  amendment  of  the  Constitution, 
which  declares  that  "  Congress  shall  make  no  law  respecting  an  es- 
tablishment of  religion  or  prohibiting  the  free  exercise  thereof." 

It  robs  our  priesthood  of  their  functions  and  heaven-bestowed 
powers,  and  gives  them  to  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court,  justices  of 
the  peace,  and  priests  whose  authority  we  cannot  recognize,  by  em- 
powering such  as  the  only  ones  to  celebrate  marriage.  As  well  might 
the  law  prescribe  who  shall  baptize  for  the  remission  of  sins,  or  lay 
on  hands  for  the  reception  of  the  Holy.  Ghost. 

It  encourages  fornication  and  adultery,  for  all  such  marriages  would 


35 

be  deemed  invalid  and  without  any  sacred  or  binding  force  by  our 
community,  and  those  thus  united  together  would,  according  to  their 
own  belief  and  religious  convictions,  be  living  in  a  condition  of  ha- 
bitual adultery,  which  would  bring  the  holy  relation  of  marriage  into 
disrepute,  and  destroy  the  safeguards  of  chastity  and  virtue. 

It  is  unconstitutional  in  that  it  is  in  direct  opposition  to  section  nine, 
article  one,  of  the  Constitution,  which  provides  that  "  no  bill  of 
attainder  or  ex  post  facto  law  shall  be  passed." 

It  destroys  the  right  of  trial  by  jury,  providing  for  the  impaneling 
of  juries  composed  of  individuals  the  recognized  enemies  of  the  accused 
and  of  foreigners  to  the  district  where  a  case  under  it  is  to  be  tried ; 
while  the  sixth  amendment  to  the  Constitution  provides  that  "  in  all 
criminal  prosecutions,  the  accused  shall  enjoy  the  right  to  a  speedy 
and  public  trial  by  an  impartial  jury  of  the  State  and  district  wherein 
the  crime  shall  have  been  committed." 

It  is  contrary  to  the  eighth  amendment  to  the  Constitution,  which 
provides  that  excessive  fines  shall  not  be  imposed,  •'  nor  cruel  and 
unusual  punishments  inflicted." 

It  violates  section  eight,  article  one,  of  the  Constitution,  which  pro- 
vides that  Congress  shall  establish  a  uniform  rule  of  naturalization 
throughout  the  United  States,  in  that  it  provides,  in  section  seventeen, 
a  new,  unheard-of,  and  special  rule,  applicable  only  to  the  Territory 
of  Utah. 

It  is  anti-republican,  in  that  in  section  ten  it  places  men  on  unequal 
ground,  by  giving  one  portion  of  the  citizens  superior  privileges  over 
others,  because  of  their  belief. 

It  strips  us  in  sections  seventeen  and  twenty-six  of  the  land  we 
have  reclaimed  from  barrenness  and  which  we  have  paid  Government 
for  ;  also  of  all  possessory  rights  to  which  we  are  entitled  as  settlers. 

It  authorizes  by  section  fourteen  the  sending  of  criminals  into  dis- 
tant military  camps  and  prisons. 

It  is  most  unjust,  unconstitutional,  and  proscriptive,  in  that  it  dis- 
franchises and  proscribes  American  citizens  for  no  act  but  simply 
believing  in  plurality  of  wives,  which  the  bill  styles  polygamy,  bigamy, 
or  concubinage,  even  if  they  never  have  practised  or  designed  to  prac- 
tise it. 

It  offers  a  premium  for  prostitution  and  corruption,  in  that  it  re- 
quires, in  sections  eleven  and  twelve,  husbands  and  wives  to  violate 
the  holiest  vows  they  can  make  and  voluntarily  bastardize  their  own 
children. 

It  declares,  in  section  twenty-one,  marriage  to  be  a  civil  contract, 
and  names  the  officers  who  alone  shall  solemnize  the  rite,  when  our 
faith  expressly  holds  it  as  a  most  sacred  ordinance,  which  can  only 
be  administered  by  those  holding  the  authority  from  Heaven  ;  thus 
compelling  us  to  discriminate  in  favor  of  officers  appointed  by  the 
Government  and  against  officers  authorized  by  the  Almighty. 

It  thus  takes  away  the  right  of  conscience,  and  deprives  us  of  an 
ordinance  upon  the  correct  administration  of  which  our  happiness  and 
eternal  salvation  depend. 


36 

It  not  only  subverts  religious  liberty,  but  in  sections  sixteen  and 
nineteen  violates  every  principle  of  civil  liberty  and  true  republicanism, 
in  that  it  bestows  upon  the  Governor  the  sole  authority  to  govern 
jails  and  prisons,  and  to  remove  their  wardens  and  keepers  ;  to  appoint 
and  remove  probate  judges,  justices  of  the  peace,  judges  of  all  elec- 
tions, notaries  public  and  all  sheriffs  ;  clothing  one  man  with  despotic 
and,  in  this  Republic,  unheard-of  power. 

It  thus  deprives  the  people  of  all  voice  in  the  government  of  the 
Territory,  reduces  them  to  abject  vassalage,  creates  a  dangerous,  irre- 
sponsible and  centralized  despotism  from  which  there  is  no  appeal, 
and  leaves  their  lives,  liberties,  and  every  human  right  subject  to  the 
caprice  of  one  man,  and  that  man  selected  and  sent  here  from  afar. 

It  proposes,  in  sections  eleven,  twelve,  and  seventeen,  to  punish 
American  citizens,  not  for  wrongs,  but  for  acts  sanctioned  by  God  and 
practised  by  His  most  favored  servants,  requiring  them  to  call  those 
bad  men  whom  God  chose  for  His  oracles  and  delighted  to  honor, 
and  even  to  cast  reflections  on  the  ancestry  of  the  Saviour  himself. 

It  strikes  at  the  foundation  of  all  republican  government,  in  that  it 
dictates  opinions  and  belief,  prescribes  what  shall  and  shall  not  be 
believed  by  citizens,  and  assumes  to  decide  on  the  validity  of  revela- 
tion from  Almighty  God,  the  author  of  existence. 

It  disorganizes  and  reduces  to  a  chaotic  condition  every  precinct, 
city,  and  county  in  the  Territory  of  Utah,  and  substitutes  no  adequate 
organization.  It  subverts,  by  summary  process,  nearly  every  law  on 
our  statute-book. 

It  violates  the  faith  of  the  United  States,  in  that  it  breaks  the  orig- 
inal compact  made  with  the  people  of  this  Territory  in  the  organic 
act,  who  were,  at  the  time  that  compact  was  made,  received  as  citizens 
from  Mexican  territory,  and  known  to  be  believers  in  the  doctrine  of 
the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter-day  Saints. 

We  also  wish  your  honorable  bodies  to  understand  that  the  legisla- 
ture of  this  Territory  has  never  passed  any  law  affecting  the  primary 
disposal  of  the  soil,  but  only  adopted  regulations  for  the  controlling  of 
our  claims  and  possessions,  upon  which  improvements  to  the  amount 
of  millions  of  dollars  have  been  made. 

This  bill,  in  section  thirty-six,  repeals  the  law  of  the  Territory  con- 
taining said  regulations,  thereby  leaving  us  destitute  of  legal  protection 
to  our  hard-earned  possessions,  the  accumulated  labor  of  over  twenty 
years,  and  exposing  us  to  the  mercy  of  laud  speculators  and  vampires. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  this  bill, 
which  would  deprive  us  of  religious  liberty  and  every  political  right 
worth  having,  is  not  directed  against  the  people  of  Utah  as  men  and 
women,  but  against  their  holy  religion.  Eighteen  years  ago,  and  ten 
years  before  the  passage  of  the  anti-polygamy  act  of  1862,  one  of  our 
leading  men,  Elder  Orson  Pratt,  was  expressly  deputed  and  sent  to 
the  city  of  Washington,  D.  C.,  to  publish  and  lecture  on  the  principle 
of  patriarchal  or  plural  marriage  as  practised  by  us. 

He  lectured  frequently  in   that  and  other  cities,  and  published  a 


37 

paper  for  some  length  of  time,  in  which  he  established,  by  elaborate 
and  convincing  arguments,  the  divinity  of  the  revelation  commanding 
plural  marriage,  given  through  the  prophet  Joseph  Smith,  and  that 
the  doctrine  was  sanctioned  and  endorsed  by  the  highest  biblical  au- 
thority. For  ten  years  before  the  passage  of  the  act  of  1862  this 
doctrine  was  widely  preached  throughout  the  Union  and  the  world, 
and  it  was  universally  known  and  recognized  as  a  principle  of  our 
holy  faith.  We  are  thus  explicit  in  mentioning  this  fact  to  show  that 
patriarchal  marriage  has  long  been  understood  to  be  a  cardinal  princi- 
ple of  our  religion.  We  would  respectfully  mention,  also,  in  this  con- 
•nection,  that  while  hundreds  of  our  leading  elders  have  been  in  the 
Eastern  States  and  in  the  city  of  Washington,  not  one  of  them  has 
been  cited  to  appear  as  a  witness  before  the  Committee  on  Territories 
to  prove  that  this  doctrine  is  a  part  of  our  religion,  gentlemen  well 
knowing  that  if  that  were  established,  the  proposed  law  would  be  null 
and  void  because  of  its  unconstitutionality. 

What  we  have  done  to  enhance  the  greatness  and  glory  of  our 
country  by  pioneering,  opening  up,  and  making  inhabitable  the  vast 
western  region,  is  before  the  nation,  and  should  receive  a  nation's 
thanks,  not  a  prescriptive  edict  to  rob  us  of  every  right  worth  pos- 
sessing, and  of  the  very  soil  we  have  reclaimed  and  then  purchased 
from  the  Government.  Before  this  soil  was  United  States  territory 
we  settled  it,  and  five  hundred  of  our  best  men  responded  to  the  call 
of  Government  in  the  war  with  Mexico,  and  assisted  in  adding  it  to 
the  national  domain.  When  we  were  received  into  the  Union  our 
religion  was  known;  our  early  officers,  including  our  first  Governor, 
were  nearly  all  Latter-day  Saints  or  "Mormons,"  for  there  were  few 
others  to  elect  from ;  we  were  treated  as  citizens  possessing  equal 
rights,  and  the  original  bond  of  agreement  between  the  United  States 
Government  and  the  people  inhabiting  this  Territory  conferred  upon 
us  the  right  of  self-government  in  the  same  degree  as  is  enjoyed  by 
other  Territories  in  the  Union. 

It  declared  that  the  power  of  the  legislature  of  this  Territory  "  shall 
extend  to  all  rightful  subjects  of  legislation,  consistent  with  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  and  the  provisions  of  the  organic  act ; 
and  the  right  of  suffrage  and  holding  office  shall  be  exercised  by  citi- 
zens of  the  United  States,"  including  those  recognized  as  citizens  by 
the  treaty  with  the  Republic  of  Mexico,  concluded  February  2, 1848. 
This  compact  or  agreement  we  have  preserved  inviolate  on  our  part, 
and  we  respectfully  submit  that  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  any  legisla- 
ture or  Congress,  legally  and  constitutionally,  to  abrogate  and  annul 
such  an  agreement  as  the  organic  law,  which  this  bill  proposes  to  do, 
without  the  consent  of  both  parties.  Our  property,  lands,  and  build- 
ings, private  arid  public,  are  to  be  confiscated  ;  our  rights  of  citizenship 
destroyed;  our  men  and  women  subjected  to  excessive  pains  and 
penalties  because  we  believe  in  and  practise  a  principle  taught  by  the 
Bible,  commanded  by  divine  revelation  to  us,  and  sustained  by  the 
Christian  monarchies  of  Great  Britain  and  France  among  millions  of 
their  subjects  in  their  territories  of  India  and  Algeria. 


38 

We  earnestly,  we  solemnly  appeal  to  you  not  to  permit  this  iniqui- 
tous, unjustly  discriminating,  and  anti-republican  measure  to  become 
law,  (and  that,  too,  in  violation  of  the  Constitution,)  by  which  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  industrious,  peaceable,  and  orderly  persons 
will  be  driven  to  the  desperate  necessity  of  disobeying  Almighty  God, 
the  Governor  of  the  universe,  or  of  subjecting  themselves  to  the  pains 
and  penalties  of  this  act,  which  would  be  worse  than  death. 

We  beseech  of  you,  gentlemen,  do  not,  by  the  passage  of  harsh 
and  despotic  measures,  drive  an  inoffensive,  God-fearing,  and  loyal 
people  to  desperation. 

We  have  suffered,  God  knows  how  much,  in  years  past  for  our  re-- 
ligion.  We  fled  to  the  mountain  wilds  to  escape  the  ruthless  hand 
of  persecution ;  and  shall  it  be  said  now  that  our  Government,  which 
ought  to  foster  and  protect  us,  designs  to  repeat,  in  the  most  aggra- 
vated form,  the  miseries  we  have  been  called  upon  to  pass  through 
before  ? 

What  evidence  can  we  give  you  that  plural  marriage  is  a  part  of 
our  religion,  other  than  what  we  have  done  by  our  public  teaching 
and  publishing  for  years  past  ?  If  your  honorable  bodies  are  not 
satisfied  with  what  we  now  present,  and  what  we  have  previously 
published  to  the  world,  we  beseech  you,  in  the  name  of  our  common 
country  and  those  sacred  principles  bequeathed  unto  us  by  our  revo- 
lutionary fathers,  in  the  name  of  humanity,  and  in.  the  name  of 
Almighty  God,  before  making  this  act  a  law,  to  send  to  this  Territory 
a  commission  clothed  with  the  necessary  authority  to  take  evidence 
and  make  a  thorough  and  exhaustive  investigation  into  the  subject, 
and  obtain  evidence  concerning  the  belief  and  workings  of  our  religious 
system  from  its  friends,  instead  of  its  enemies. 

All  of  which,  with  the  accompanying  resolutions,  is  respectfully 
submitted  to  your  favorable  consideration . 

JOHN  M.  BERNHISEL,   '  DANIEL  H.  WELLS, 

ELIAS  SMITH,  JOHN  TAYLOR, 

JOS.  A.  YOUNG,  Z.  SNOW, 

WILFORD  WOODRUFF,  HOSEA  STOUT, 

ORSON  PRATT.  SR.,  J.  C.  LITTLE, 

•S.  W.  RICHARDS,  AURELIUS  MINER, 
GEO.  Q.  CANNON, 

Committee  appointed  to  draught  remonstrance. 

This  is  to  certify  that  the  foregoing  remonstrance  was  unanimously 
adopted  by  a  general  mass  meeting  of  the  citizens  of  Salt  Lake  City 
on  Thursday,  March  31,  1870. 

DANIEL  H.  WELLS, 
President  of  the  General  Mass  Meeting. 
ROB'T  L.  CAMPBELL, 
THEODORE  McKEAN, 
PAUL  A.  SCHETTLER, 
DAVID  McKENZIE, 
Secretaries  of  the  General  Mass  Meeting. 


39 

RESOLUTIONS. 

Whereas  the  Supreme  Ruler  of  the  universe  has  the  right  to  com- 
mand man  in  the  concerns  of  life,  which  it  is  man's  duty  to  obey ;  and 
whereas,  according  to  the  positive  knowledge  of  a  large  number  of 
persons  now  assembled,  the  doctrine  of  celestial  marriage,  or  plurality 
of  wives,  was  revealed  to  the  prophet,  Joseph  Smith,  and  by  him  es- 
tablished in  the  church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter-Day  Saints  as  a 
revealed  law  of  God  :  Therefore, 

Be  it  resolved,  That  we,  the  members  of  said  church,  in  general 
mass  meeting  assembled,  do  now  most  earnestly  and  solemnly  declare 
before  Almighty  God  that  we  hold  that  said  order  of  marriage  is  a 
cardinal  principle  of  our  religious  faith,  affecting  us  not  only  for 
time  but  for  all  eternity,  and  as  sacred  and  binding  as  any  other  prin- 
ciple of  the  holy  gospel  of  the  Sou  of  God. 

Resolved,  That  celestial  marriage,  or  plurality  of  wives,  is  that 
principle  of  our  holy  religion  which  confers  on  man  the  power  of  end- 
less lives  or  eternal  increase,  and  is  therefore  beyond  the  purview  of 
legislative  enactments,  the  woman  being  married  to  the  man  for  all 
eternity  by  authority  of  the  holy  priesthood  delegated  from  God  to 
him. 

Resolved,  That  marriage  is  enjoined  upon  man  both  by  revealed 
and  by  natural  laws. 

Resolved,  That  the  practice  of  plural  marriage  in  this  Territory 
was  not  a  crime,  nor  in  violation  of  any  constitutional  or  divine  law. 
In  1862  it  was  first  declared  to  be  otherwise  by  Congressional  enact- 
ment, and  never  by  any  act  of  ours. 

Kesolved,  That  we  concur  with  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  the 
Greek  Church,  the  Church  of  England,  and  other  religious  denomina- 
tions, in  believing  marriage  to  be  a  religious  ordinance,  and  we  believe 
it  to  be  unconstitutional  to  proscribe  our  consciences  by  legislative 
enactment,  or  to  declare  it  a  civil  contract  only.  "  What  God  hath 
joined  together  let  no  man  put  asunder."  If  not  allowed  to  be  saints, 
at  least  permit  us  to  be  Christians. 

Resolved,  That  the  passage  of  a  law  which  compels  husbands  to 
abandon  their  wives,  parents  their  children,  and  absolves  those  solemn 
covenants  by  which  they  are  eternally  bound  to  each  other  in  their 
associations,  would  be  not  only  a  reproach  upon  civilized  government, 
but  in  direct  violation  of  the  law  of  God,  and,  when  made  applicable 
to  only  one  Territory,  is  partial  legislation  and  a  flagrant  act  of  per- 
secution. 

Resolved,  That  while  we  thank  the  American  Bible  Society  for 
sending  us  the  word  of  God,  we  think  it  a  strange  inconsistency  for 
a  Christian  nation,  which  has  received  its  Bible  from  inspired  men 
who  were  polygamists,  to  send  that  Bible  to  us  and  then  proscribe 
and  disfranchise  us  for  following  the  precepts  thereof  and  the  practices 
of  its  inspired  prophets. 

Resolved,  That  while  England  and  France,  both  civilized  and 
Christian  nations,  protect  and  tolerate  over  a  hundred  millions  of 


40 

polygamists  in  their  territories  in  India  and  Algeria,  it  is  invidious, 
ungenerous,  and  prescriptive  for  enlightened  republican  America  not 
to  allow  in  her  Territories  the  same  freedom  enjoyed  under  the  gov- 
ernment of  those  monarchies. 

Resolved,  That  religious  and  civil  liberty  are  both  essential  to  the 
perpetuity  of  republican  governments,  and  that  in  destroying  one  you 
destroy  the  other. 

Resolved,  That  we  tender  to  God,  our  Father  in  Heaven,  our  most 
sincere  and  hearty  thanks  for  His  great  blessings  and  kindness  to  our 
fathers  in  inspiring  them  to  establish  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  on  the  basis  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  and  that  he  put  it  into 
their  hearts  to  make  that  instrument  the  supreme  law,  which  should 
not,  in  any  emergency,  be  transcended,  and  by  which  all  should  be 
bound. 

Resolved,  That  forty  millions  of  enlightened  American  citizens, 
with  half  a  million  of  priests,  philanthropists,  and  editors,  ought  to  be 
able  to  control,  without  the  aid  of  legislative  enactments,  an  institution 
which  they  call  objectionable  and  immoral,  through  the  influence  of 
religion,  the  power  of  the  press,  and  moral  suasion,  against  one  hun- 
ered  and  fifty  thousand  people  who  consider  it  a  divine  institution. 

The  foregoing  resolutions  were  unanimously  adopted  at  a  general 
mass  meeting  of  the  citizens  of  Salt  Lake  City  on  Thursday,  March 
31,  1870. 

DANIEL  H.  WELLS, 
President  of  General. Mass  Meeting. 
JOHN  M.  BERNHISEL, 
JOHN  TAYLOR, 
WILFORD  WOODRUFF, 
ORSON  PRATT,  SR  , 
JOSEPH  F.  SMITH, 
JOS.  A.  YOUNG, 
GEO.  Q.  CANNON, 
Vice- Presidents  of  General  Mass  Meeting. 
THEODORE  McKBAN, 
PAUL  A.  SCHETTLER, 
ROBT.  L.  CAMPBELL, 
DAVID  McKENZIE, 
Secretaries  of  General  Mass  Meeting. 


Gaylord  Bros. 


Stockton,  Calif. 

PAT.  JAN  21.  1908 


